Category: Podcast Episodes

Hayley Westhoff is the co-founder of MacPherson Westhoff, one of @Properties top producing teams. In her own production Hayley is one of her firm’s top producers and she’s only in her sixth year! (…and @Properties has over 3,000 brokers!). In our conversation Hayley discusses how she started her business and the exact steps taken that built her practice. She also reveals how her team is structured and why she prefers a one-point-of-contact relationship with clients. Lastly she talks about her philosophy around client care – making each client feel as if they’re the most important client (because each client IS actually the most important client!).

Hayley Westhoff can be reached at hwesthoff@atproperties.com and 773.729.0594.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcasts made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. As always I am your host through the show. And before we get to our episode interview with Hayley West off of that properties, I just want to a couple of quick announcements. As always, thank you for listening. We really appreciate it. In the last few weeks, we’ve received the most I guess, I don’t like to use the word fan mail, because that sounds sounds sort of silly. But I guess we have been getting a lot of fan mail. So a lot of brokers have reached out and told us they appreciate the show. And we appreciate that as well. And also, we’ve been getting a lot of suggestions on people to interview. So thank you as well. If you’re new to the show, you can subscribe to our episodes on any podcast app, just typically, you know, do a search for keeping it real podcast. Or you can go right to our website, which has direct links to iTunes as well as Google Play. To be able to, you know, subscribe directly to the podcast, right at our website, keeping it real pod.com. You can also listen to every episode we’ve ever recorded right from that website as well. Again, keeping it real pod.com Find us on Facebook, we post all sorts of announcements, we post links to every episode, and we like to stay in touch with the listeners that way. So please find us on Facebook keeping it real pod or just search for keeping it real podcast. And that is all I have, again, appreciate the kind words that are coming in. And somebody actually gave me a couple of good suggestions of how I could improve so I appreciate that too. So if you have any suggestions, the how to make the show better or guests to have or just that it’s working for you. We appreciate it and we’ll keep making these episodes. So now on to our interview with Haley Weston.

Haley West off has been in real estate for six years and has already individually sold over 57 million. Collectively her team’s volume or team has the McPherson Weston group. They have their volume is over 120 million in a short amount of time Haley has been consistently named a top 1% producer by Chicago Association of Realtors has been recognized and featured as who’s who in Chicago real estate by Chicago agent magazine and is one of our properties top producing agents. She is the team leader of the McPherson Westhoff group, which is a team of 12 McPherson. Westhoff is a unique group that has presence in the city and the suburbs, and has an urban to suburban concierge service, which helps families moving from the city to the suburbs, sell their city property, navigate the suburbs, and seamlessly make that transition. She’s a Chicago native and currently resides in Roscoe village with her husband, two young daughters and a little dog, Nico. Welcome, Haley.

Haley Westhoff 3:07
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:09
Thanks for coming on. And I think what you guys are doing is so interesting. But let’s let’s really start with you tell us you know, how you’ve been in real estate in just six years, you’ve built this huge team, but let’s start at the beginning. Like how’d you get into real estate.

Haley Westhoff 3:25
So the truth is, as I, as even as a little girl, I always wanted to be in real estate, I was always fascinated with houses, and a lot of my family members are in real estate. So I kind of grew up in it. But after college, I was a little nervous to take that jump, just given my father was going to stop paying my bills, and I was a little worried, you know, not having a set salary. So I got into marketing, and then I got into teaching, I was a teacher for eight years. And then you know, I just couldn’t fight it anymore. I just, you know, it just kind of came over me and I took the plunge and never looked back.

D.J. Paris 4:05
Well, let’s talk about before you built the group and just starting out on your own was that difficult? Did you know what did you do? Obviously, you know, survive that first year or two?

Haley Westhoff 4:16
Yeah, it’s tough. You know, I never knew how competitive this business really was. I got my license, and I was ready to work. And I was, you know, like, Alright, where’s the business? And I realized, oh, my gosh, I have to bring this in myself. And it was, you know, a crazy feeling. So it was tough. My first two years. I busted my I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. But and, you know, I, I was working really hard. And I did. I did do some transactions, but you know, I didn’t feel the reward of how hard I was working. Wasn’t until my third year that I really started to reap the benefits of of my hard work.

D.J. Paris 5:01
Yeah, that seems to be a pretty common story, even with, you know, top 1% producers like yourself, which is the first two to three years tend to be pretty rough, even for, you know, the very end up being at the very top of the mountain down the road. So how did you, you know, how did you build your business? What were what were you doing? And because I’m sure you’ve seen over the years, a lot of people come and go, some people become really successful others struggle, and some even leave the business, you know, what did you feel definitely like? What do you think you were doing that made the difference?

Haley Westhoff 5:33
Yeah, so I realized after I got into the business, there’s 40,000 brokers in Chicago, and it’s one of the most competitive cities, and I knew that I just could not be average, I have worked with a lot of realtors before in my past, real estate transactions, my personal ones, and I know that most, you know, I felt like, the transactions from my past are just very average. So I knew that I needed to be exceptional in every single way in order to make it in this business. Yeah, so I decided to just, you know, be absolutely exceptional and every single step of the process and be memorable and not forgettable. And, you know, have my clients be over the moon happy with me, and refer me to everybody? So that’s really what I did. I just, I built my business 100% from referrals, I never spent $1 on marketing until very recently, actually, I really, really just made my clients 100% happy. And, and they referred me and that’s kind of how my business got built. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 6:53
I think, I think that’s a good answer. And it’s obviously it’s, it’s the true answer. And it’s funny too, because oftentimes, on we’ve done, Gosh, 75 or six episodes, sometimes these, you know, it’s for top producers, it’s not that they have a secret or some special formula that works. It’s just that they’ve taken the job really seriously. And they treat their, their their clients as if every client’s the only client and clients of course, know that. And, you know, I think it’s, it’s really very, very important. And obviously, you you guys are doing that. And now, so when did you actually start building a team?

Haley Westhoff 7:34
So we started our team, roughly, I would say two years ago. And it was my partner is Pam McPherson, we actually have known each other since kindergarten. And we have similar she got into the business around a similar time, you know, as I did, and we were very similar brokers very like minded. So we just decided it was a good fit. And we started a team.

D.J. Paris 8:03
Well, it’s, it’s I know, you’re, you’re very humble about it, but it’s impressive, because you’re in your sixth year, you now have this team, there’s what 12 people that’s truly remarkable and very unusual. So it clearly means you guys are doing a lot of things. Right. Thank you. Yeah, well, I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s You’re welcome. But it’s it’s so impressive. I mean, I assumed, you know that you’ve said, Oh, they must be in their 15th year, you know, that would make probably more logical sense for having a team that big, but it’s so impressive. They’ve done it so quickly. And what you know, what do you attribute the growth of your business? I know, you talked about, you know, making very memorable, actually, can you give us an examples, any examples that come to mind of how to make yourself memorable?

Haley Westhoff 8:48
So I, you know, I realized that I realized that real estate transactions are so different than any other kind of transactions. It’s a personal and emotional transaction. And that means that your clients need you in a different way than any other kind of business transaction. So I make it a very personal experience, I build relationships with my clients, I’m friends with my clients. And when something’s going wrong in a deal, it keeps me up at night. So I really, I really think that my clients feel that and know that, and they have a special kind of bond with me because of that. So I think it just is about the relationship that I build with them. And, you know, the fact that their experience is, you know, very positive, generally speaking, and I think they just really appreciate that. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 9:43
I think you’re right. And they what’s it’s like, some old expression of it’s never that crowded at the top of the mountain. And it’s, it’s, there’s room for everyone. And it’s funny to be because I think the brokers who I’ve talked to, at least on the show, very much like yourself, selves have that exact same mentality. It’s very consistent. And it’s not. I don’t know that it’s consistent among all realtors. But certainly the top 1% seem to share that this idea of being super passionate about making sure their clients or at least know what’s going on, but you know, in a way that makes them know that you care, every step of the process. And obviously, you guys, you guys must be doing a really good job of that. You know, I always have this question for for brokers that I interview, and I always forget to ask it. So I’ll ask you before I forget. So once a transaction is over, and obviously you’ve done a great job, and if anything comes up, where a friend of theirs may ask them, oh, who do you use? Obviously, they’re going to recommend you. Is there anything you’re doing, though? Because might be seven years in between the transaction with the same person? Is there anything you’re doing to stay in touch? You know, I always wonder what brokers do after the sale?

Haley Westhoff 10:57
Yeah, that’s a great question, especially as your book of business keeps growing, every year, it gets tougher and tougher. But, you know, I, I always keep a list of my past clients, and look at it periodically and reach out if I haven’t, you know, had some kind of communication with them. I reach out on their birthdays, I send holiday cards, we have a client appreciation event, each year that, you know, we invite all of our clients, and it’s really just, you know, in I make it so that it’s not a chore or an you know, a task it is because I want to reach out to them. So it just becomes kind of natural. And, you know, the truth is, is I really do build friendships with my clients. So, you know, I do, I’ve gone out to dinner with many clients and keep in touch over coffee. So it’s just, I try to make it as natural as possible, because I never want it to become a task.

D.J. Paris 11:57
Yeah, no, I think that I think that’s great. I’m just, I’m just going to focus on one of the one of the great ideas you just mentioned, which is so simple, but it’s I would bet realistically, 98%, maybe 99% of brokers don’t do it, which is at least knowing your clients birthdays, and then calling or doing something to let them know that, you know, some sending some sort of message, whether it’s a phone call, or an email, or whatever a card. But like even that is huge. I started thinking about this recently, because I have, you know, we all have these professionals in our life, you know, maybe we have a realtor or mortgage person, an attorney, financial advisor, you know, an accountant, etc. You may have some or all of those people. And I’m like I was thinking about this recently, like, not one of them contacts me for my birthday, and I’m not upset with their, they’re great. But like, none of them do that. I think like, it’s yeah, it’s true. But it’s like the simplest, easiest thing that anybody and it gives you a reason to call them where you’re not necessarily going like, Hey, make sure to tell everybody you know about me what you can always do, too. But it gives you like, a real reason to call them where you don’t have to feel uncomfortable about

Haley Westhoff 13:01
even a text message, a text message is so you know, it’s so easy and casual. And everybody appreciates it. So it’s

D.J. Paris 13:11
such a simple idea. And I’ll bet you most most people don’t do it. And so it’s like a huge takeaway, like, if that’s all you ever do. But yeah, throwing a client appreciation event on on the sort of opposite end a much bigger thing to do there. But boy, people love to get together and, you know, meet with each other, and then just, you know, catch up. And that’s always great, too. And I think a lot of brokers don’t probably should do more of that as well. We’ll tell it tell us a little bit about your team, because I think this is really interesting. So you’re, you started this team with your best friend from a friend of yours from kindergarten? And how did you guys which was she had a different company and you kind of met up? Are you guys at the same company? Like how did that work out?

Haley Westhoff 13:52
Yeah, so we actually both came from Jamestown, and we both went to add properties. And, you know, it was just kind of a small idea at first and it just kind of snowballed into this really great kind of concept that we have, which is you know, our urban to suburban concierge. So she had the the group in the suburbs, and I had the group in the city. And you know, we really saw a need for for clients that are selling in the city and moving to the suburbs, and these two transactions usually happen simultaneously. And you know, with you, they’re either getting one broker who’s not an expert in both areas, or they’re getting two separate brokers who are not, you know, don’t know each other and don’t communicate with each other and it just becomes messy. So we kind of saw this need and it was perfect that you know, I’m able to help them sell in the city and Pam and her team in the suburbs. able to, you know, first help identify a suburb that works for them. And then, you know, helps them find a home. And then we work on these two transactions together, we take them the client out who, who ends up becoming the middleman, we take them out, so it’s a lot less stress on them. And we work with the same attorney. And it’s just especially if they’re contingent on selling their home in the city, it’s so much cleaner, it makes so much more sense, we can come up with a timeline that really works for for them, you know, taking advantage of of the best market in each place. So it’s just really, really helpful. And it’s been really

D.J. Paris 15:38
great. It’s clearly working with your productions, obviously, very impressive that your individual production, your team production, the fact that you’ve grown this team, I mean, I really can’t even make a big enough deal about growing to 12 people in a few years. or so. Like, that’s really, really remarkable and very unusual. So it obviously means as as humble as you are, it’s like something for sure to brag about, oh, by the way, we should mentioned that people should follow your you on Instagram, which is Haley West off realtor, so find her on Instagram. And you can of course find Yeah, you can find me on Facebook as well, and also the McPherson Weston group, by searching around, but um, how have you found his social media helped your business in a significant way? Or have you found that it’s not that useful? I’m just out of curiosity, how that’s been working.

Haley Westhoff 16:30
You know, to be honest with you, I actually just started amping up my social media. In the last couple of months, it’s not you know, my generation isn’t as into social media as this generation. But I and now we’re in a slower market, I have the time to kind of work on this kind of stuff. So I haven’t really, I think it helps with your perception and presence. I think everybody, Google’s their realtor that they’re gonna work with, and they want to make sure that their realtor is, you know, in the know, and producing and knowledgeable. And I do think that it helps with that. I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten a client off of social media, but it does help with just your online presence in general.

D.J. Paris 17:21
Yeah, I find that that’s typically the answer we get from most brokers is hey, I use it I’m, I’m, I enjoy it. I don’t know how much it directly affects, you know, getting clients but it certainly isn’t hurting. So that’s, that’s, that’s very interesting, but and by the way, your website is is Mapquest real estate. So MACD West real estate.com, they have a very cool website as well. But, um, so if you had, and I’m sure you guys have happened, where maybe you’ve even brought on brokers onto your team that are new to the business, but, you know, what do you tell new brokers or people that you meet that are thinking about getting into the industry? You know, obviously, you guys have had a lot of success. What advice do you have for them?

Haley Westhoff 18:05
Yeah, um, tell them to run, trying to make a living and feeding themselves off this for the first year. I know, it’s important. You know, I just, ya know, I mean, it’s, it’s really tough the first couple years, but I just tell them, what I did just do a stellar job and be in front of your clients, and the referrals will will come, you know, I never really spent time and money on buying leads or cold calling, it was just never my style. I honestly just, I just worked really, really hard. And, you know, in the in the referrals followed and I think, you know, in terms of listings, because I think it’s different with buyers and sellers, in terms of listings, you do a really, really, really good job. And you know, your results say everything but the proof is in the pudding. So they say so, you know, I would with my listings my first I mean until now but I remember putting my heart and soul and sweat and tears and spending hours with staging Ed and contractors and it really paid off. I mean, I sold my listing so quickly and for you know full asking over asking I in my sellers were so happy and you know, then you bring that to the table like, look, look what I’ve done, and it just starts snowballing. So just do a really, really good job and you know, clients will follow that.

D.J. Paris 19:41
Yeah, I think I think that’s true. It’s funny too, because oftentimes when when we interview top one percenters it’s not always easily or exciting. Oftentimes they think oh, I was boring because I didn’t have some this great strategy, but the reality of it is, you know, it’s probably just a lot of fundamentals. And you know, obviously you hasn’t been doing that. But even something as simple as like learn the skill of staging, or hire a good staging company, that the data was really impressive around staging and what it does to, obviously, you know, time on market and then also the price.

Haley Westhoff 20:15
It’s incredible. And that is one thing that I that I do think sets me apart and truly actually my whole team, because we’re we all happen to be very knowledgeable and good at staging. And actually, we even have our own storage facility with some staging pieces in it, my whole garage is filled with accessories, I really spend so much time with my sellers to prepare their property. And sometimes that means professionally staging. But usually it just means using their stuff, and decluttering and bringing in a couple new pieces, I always accessorize, it makes a world of difference. And your sellers really appreciate it. So that is one thing that I think does set me and my team apart is that we really spend a lot of time preparing the property. And I think it shows and ours also

D.J. Paris 21:08
it shows a level of care and professionalism. And again, I don’t know what percentage of brokers are able to service their client in that way. But I’ll bet you it’s in the single digits. So it’s

Haley Westhoff 21:21
Oh, for sure. Yeah, well, that

D.J. Paris 21:22
you can learn or develop over time. And but it’s a pretty important one. And I know certainly would distinguish if if Haley was ever up against another realtor for a listing. And it was between the two I you know, I would think the one who can say, oh, I can make your place actually look prettier, which in fact will likely drive the price up is a pretty important skill to be able to, to to offer so and not one that I hear very often why interviewing even top one percenter so I think that’s huge. I just interviewed so this previous episode, which hasn’t gone live yet, it was Michael Rosenbloom from Berkshire Hathaway, and he’s all about staging. So he’s like, super passionate, just like you guys. And it’s he he was laughing on the show. He’s like, nobody else can do it. Like I can, you know, be really has this amazing skill. And obviously, you guys do too. And it like really separates you guys from from the pack. So

Haley Westhoff 22:14
yeah, it really does. And, you know, I always tell, you know, when when a seller is deciding between three different agents, go look at their last listings on the MLS, and see what the pictures look like, see what you know, I mean, that is so compelling, like, how much effort are these listing agents really putting into the properties and making them look, you know, making them shine and making them stand out amongst the other. So I think that that’s just a really compelling piece that a lot of people overlook.

D.J. Paris 22:45
Well, even just making sure you’re using a good photography to not everyone even does that. So it’s like, that’s a basic,

Haley Westhoff 22:52
yeah, I know. Yeah, there’s some pictures out there that are just embarrassing.

D.J. Paris 23:01
I’m sure you see it all the time. But again, that also separates you in your team from from all the other realtors who aren’t putting that sort of care into it. But um, let’s let’s so as far as building, as you know, when you guys have built this team, how, you know, how the team has been around for how many years now?

Haley Westhoff 23:20
About two,

D.J. Paris 23:21
that’s incredible to build a team that big that quickly is amazing. And, and at this point, you know, now, are you spending more? Are you still working as much individually with clients? Are you spending more time managing, you know, the, the existing team members?

Haley Westhoff 23:39
Oh, yeah, I so one thing that, you know, every team works very differently. And one thing that I said I would never give up is my time with clients. So that has not changed one iota. I don’t have a team where, you know, so and so does the contracts on so does the showings I am, I am my I am basically a one man show for my clients. I always say that I’d rather have 25 really, really happy clients than 50 somewhat happy clients. So you know, I really only if I really only take on a certain amount of business, and if I don’t have the bandwidth to do, so. I’ll refer to someone on my team. So that’s, that’s kind of one way that I, that we are different than other teams is that is that we work like that.

D.J. Paris 24:37
Yeah, I think that’s that’s great. And it is somewhat unusual, not unusual at all. It’s, it’s, it’s different. So, I think, you know, it’s funny, there’s arguments to be made on both sides about whether having enough you know, specialized people on the team to handle contracts, for example, is good, but at the end of the day, the client really just wants probably one relationship, right? And so yeah, Yeah, exactly. And they just want to know that you live, eat and breathe their transaction. And I think exactly, yeah, not that not that that other way. The other ways, probably more efficient in certain ways. But it may, there may be some potential downside in the client maybe not feeling as intimate or as close to

Haley Westhoff 25:18
Yeah, I mean, you know, I actually went through a transaction like that before I got into real estate. And it felt so robotic to me. And I thought, This is my personal home, I don’t want to feel like I’m getting passed along, you know, like a machine. You know, maybe maybe in the mortgage in the mortgage process. That’s different because that’s very transactional, but I want to be you know, there for my clients from the beginning till the end.

D.J. Paris 25:46
Awesome. Well, I think I think that is perfectly set in a great place for us to to conclude, because I think you’ve said it all. But we should talk about about but you guys and if anyone is listening who is a buyer, seller, investor or renter, whoever has a real estate need if they wanted to work with you directly, what’s the best way they should reach out?

Haley Westhoff 26:09
I am text friendly, call friendly, email friendly. My phone number is 773-729-0594. And my email is Hayley ha y le y at app properties.com.

D.J. Paris 26:22
You can also visit the Haley’s group and see all the team members and you know, contact Haley directly are also at their website, which is Mapquest. realestate.com you should follow Haley on Instagram, at Kaylee, West off realtor. And then also you can find their group and her on Facebook and check them out as well. So thank you on behalf of Haley who was gracious enough, and by the way, I can even attest for how responsive she is because I saw the email chain between our producer Jen and it was like, like Jen would reply, and then Haley would reply, like minutes later. So it’s

Haley Westhoff 26:59
very, I have a problem.

D.J. Paris 27:02
That’s a good problem. When it comes to

Haley Westhoff 27:05
a thing. It’s a good thing for my clients. And it’s a really terrible thing for me.

D.J. Paris 27:10
And also, I will say that you are the only guest I’ve ever had that showed up like 10 minutes early in the recording room. So again, early and you’re always early and always responsive. I’d say that’s a pretty couple of pretty good qualities for a broker. So anyway, on behalf of Haley and myself, thanks for listening, we again if there’s any other brokers that that are listening, and you know other brokers that might benefit from hearing from interviews with people like Haley definitely pass this podcast along and follow us on Facebook keeping it real pod, and we will see you next time. So Haley, thank you so much for your time.

Haley Westhoff 27:46
Thank you for having me. I’m flattered and I really appreciate your time.

D.J. Paris 27:51
Thank you

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Michael Rosenblum is a legendary Chicago broker with Berkshire Hathaway. He’s worked with 1000+ clients and closed over 475m in transactions. In addition to being one of Chicago top producers he’s also a best-selling author with Happily Ever Always, a work which serves as a guide for one to find their passions and truth, which will lead to more happiness and fulfillment. It will also lead to more business, increased productivity and happier clients. In our conversation Michael share how he built his business and how Happily Ever Always can help anyone looking to discover greater, well, happiness!

To order Happily Ever Always, click here!

Michael Rosenblum can be reached at 312.893.8182 and michael@happilyeveralways.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris. I am your host through this show. And as always, we like to start out by thanking our audience for listening and continually telling a friend about the show. So if you have any other realtors that you work with, and if you’re a realtor yourself, we appreciate you listening. But make sure to tell everybody you know who was interested in learning from the top 1%. We feature the very highest level producers in Chicago and only the highest level producers and have them share their stories and their generously do do that. In today’s no exception. We have Michael Rosenbloom coming up in just a moment. I will also encourage all the listeners to follow us on Facebook. So find us at keeping it real pod. And also you can stream every episode we’ve ever done directly from our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Of course, you can subscribe via iTunes, Google Play Anywhere else podcasts are served. So we now I think this is episode 76 or so we’re grateful to keep doing it. And we’re really happy you keep listening and you’re sending in all sorts of recommendations and good questions to ask during these these interviews. So without further ado, on to our interview with Michael Rosen.

Michael Rosenbloom is the author of the best selling book happily ever always top selling real estate brokers guide to confidence, contentedness and security. Published by trade craft books, he is one of Chicago’s most successful and legendary. I added that residential real estate brokers having generated career sales of over 450 million individually and I believe over 1000 transactions, which is really impressive. Nationally, Michael has been inducted into the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chairman’s Circle, and is consistently ranked in the top half of 1% of 48,000 real estate brokers in the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Network. Michael is, of course, always in the top 1% of all the Chicagoland brokers as well learn more about Michael and his book at happily ever always.com, which you can purchase. Basically, everywhere books are sold, we will post links to the Amazon direct link, as well as Barnes and Noble. So Michael, thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome.

Michael Rosenblum 2:51
Thank you, DJ, I’m delighted to be here. And I have to tell you, you are the nicest PR person, you should be a public relations individual as opposed to just a real estate person. Wow, you’re excited? Well, well,

D.J. Paris 3:08
well, no, believe me, we are the one thank you for that. We are really the ones who are most excited to have you because you are somebody that has been on our invite list since the beginning. We are now 76. This will be our 76th episode. But you’ve always been one of the people that we’ve been trying to get since the beginning. And we’re so grateful because Michael is on a book tour, we should mention this book is a very, very big deal. But before we get to the book, I would like to hear your personal story about how you got into real estate if you don’t mind sharing that.

Michael Rosenblum 3:40
I would love to so I actually am originally from the East Coast. That’s where I was raised. And subsequently I came to the Midwest to go to journalism school, which then I became more interested in the business side of media. And so going to University of Missouri was quite an interesting experience. And then subsequently, I moved to Chicago in 1986 and enjoyed a 23 year career in media and marketing. And of course that’s not answering your question directly, but I’m trying to just give a little background information because I know it will be important as you and I speak today

D.J. Paris 4:23
show and by the way, by the way, I’m sorry to interrupt. I was gonna say we should note that Mizzou is one of the top journalism schools in the country. So Michael has obviously been a superstar even pre real estate. But anyway, I’m sorry, go ahead and continue.

Michael Rosenblum 4:36
Oh, no, it’s my pleasure. So basically, during the tenure of being in the media, I worked for different magazines and then created a magazine in 1994 called Travel your way and it was distributed through the New York Times sold it to a division of the Interpublic Group of Companies in 98. And then and created another book called endless travel during that.com era when people started to book travel online in the late 90s, and then sold that out in the year 2000. Of course, none of the books are in existence today due to the crisis that occurred during 911, which was horrible on so many different levels. And that being said, I semi retired in the year 2000, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. But as a kid, I was always fascinated with real estate, I loved going to open houses I, I loved the design, the architecture, like the pricing, what made something, you know, priced, the way it was priced land, it just all resonated with me. So my partner said to me, you should do real estate, you’re so great at just understanding space. I’m a very abstract thinker, and I can go into a room. And I can visualize 15 different ways to set up furniture. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, maybe it’s only five. But the point is, is that my brain is more like a kaleidoscope. And I can kind of just move things around imaging in my head. And then I can articulate that to people before I actually do it. So they understand, I actually stage a lot of the listings that I end up taking, I don’t use an outside staging firm, because I really don’t, you know, need them since I have that sort of gift that I own. So in short, that’s how I started to get into real estate is that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I know I, you asked me the time I built your watch. This is being a little bit laborious. But in short, I just decided to get my real estate license. And that was the beginning to everything. That happened, I think, in the year 2003, that I decided to start doing real estate.

D.J. Paris 7:20
Well, and how did you find the transition from journalism being a business owner? Obviously selling businesses, maybe related in a sort of peripheral way to real estate? But certainly, you know, this is a was a different career path for you. How did you find that transition into real estate?

Michael Rosenblum 7:45
I found it pretty easy, because here’s the thing that I always tell brokers that are just starting out in the business, you bring a skill set, you know, it’s interesting, I’m, I’m a little older. And so when I went to school in the business school, they didn’t teach real estate courses, per se, I believe today, that there are many university business schools that actually teach real estate as a course. And so whether or not you’re coming from another position or another occupation into real estate, you always have a skill set. And that skill set is what is really your foundation for your success as you move into the career of real estate. So bringing all of my media and marketing knowledge is what allowed me and what up continues to allow me to this day to really be a huge listing broker and just know how to platform, the various properties that I’m selling in a way that’s going to drive traffic. And so that’s probably a distinguishing factor about me from other brokers. But getting back to you know, your your, your question. It wasn’t a difficult transaction, because it was just, you know, basically sort of an academic approach, and just being who I was, but using that skill set that I had owned.

D.J. Paris 9:20
Well, it’s clearly apparent and I’d like everyone who is listening, assuming they’re not driving, or pull over if you’re driving but visit Michael’s website for a couple of reasons, which is happily ever always.com which is of course the name of his book, but also highlights a lot of what Michael just mentioned, which has to do with the listings that he is working with, and I it was funny a few moments ago, you had mentioned that you do the staging yourself. I would have never assumed a broker would have that particular of strong of a skill set and staging because if you want to see what really super professional staging looks like, Michael’s doing it and you Need to see his listings because they are breathtaking. You know, I don’t know if you’re also doing the photography, but boy, the staging is just perfect on these. And also, his website is also really super impressive for a lot of reasons. But I see a lot of broker websites, and this is one of the best I have seen. So again, this probably speaks to a lot of Michael’s strengths in journalism and media itself. But boy, I’ll tell you just the homes he has listed are just breathtaking. So congratulations, I don’t You don’t need me to congratulate you. But it’s really impressive.

Michael Rosenblum 10:35
Oh, my God, DJ, you’re so nice. I mean, honestly, that’s I’m just really humbled by your comments. They’re, they’re very nice. But I’m just being me. And I think that’s what I want to share with everyone out there is. And this is what my book talks about. Not that we want to plug the book, but it’s the idea that each one of us on this earth is born with special gifts, you know, you think about like a diamond, which starts out in a chunk of rock, and it goes through the sort of hardest cut in the roughest polish in order to be able to shine, to brilliance, I believe. So too, are we as people we start out and we have these gifts, beard buried within us. And as we begin to self discover, and self awaken and self reflect, we find out what our own natural talents and these natural talents or gifts about us are what makes us different, and also unique, and provides us what marketing people call that competitive edge. So it’s what allows one broker to distinguish themselves over another broker, DJ, if you think about, like, what makes you a great broker, what makes you different, what kind of gifts, we all have something special. And sometimes that sort of special gift is similar in a way to some other people that we know. I mean, they always say birds of a feather flock together. But I think it’s important that even if there’s similarities, there are a few points of difference sort of like cultures, think of all the cultures out there that we have on this planet. And they’re rich, and they’re wonderful. And, and sometimes, you know, people don’t understand cultures of, you know, different lands. And so they’re perhaps intimidated when they should be welcoming, because what we realize is, while there are many different cultures out there, and there are many differences among people, there are more similarities among mankind, which brings us back to being a broker, it doesn’t matter who you’re working with, everyone wants to be treated with kindness, with respect, everyone wants to work with someone who has a great amount of knowledge to help them achieve their goal, whether it’s buying a house or, or selling a house or buying up, you know, new dress in a store or a Siewert. You want to work with excellence. And I think that, you know, we it’s really important for us as brokers to, you know, treat others in the same way that we would want to be treated ourselves. So I know my mantra is very much of I treat my clients exactly the way I would expect a broker to treat me if I hired them to do my transaction. And that is what frames my mind. With every client. I work with DJ.

D.J. Paris 13:53
Well, you’ve worked with a lot of clients. So it’s cool. It’s clearly working and I think in a very genuine way over the your career, it’s over 1000 clients 450 million and transactions, which I know you wouldn’t brag about yourself, but I’ll brag for you because it’s it’s really indicative of your ability to connect directly with consumers and obviously work I’m I’m assuming almost exclusively if not exclusively by referral. Michael is is very much a legend in the Chicago broker community for his ability to just do a wonderful job and his obviously his production supports that. I would also like to I do want to promote your book because I think it’s a really important book and and by the way, we should note that Michael is is currently on a a tour to talk about this book all over. He’s been on television, many podcasts, and we appreciate his time, but I want to talk about I’d also like to talk about the book and getting dive into it. It may be even more so than we have which again is called happily ever always, which you can find Amazon, Barnes and Noble, really anywhere, books are available, but happily ever always.com There’s direct links as well. But tell us a little bit about why you decided to write the book.

Michael Rosenblum 15:13
Well, the book has been marinating in me a very, very long time. And I suppose it’s based on the fact that I looked at the world today and see where people are. And I find that, you know, sometimes I see so much unhappiness, and I feel that everyone deserves to live in a mindset of happiness, not misery, I just feel that’s the way we were put on the earth. Not to be miserable in our existence, but rather to always be happy. And if you think of the fairy tale, the wonderful fairy tale ending happily ever after, which we all know, after is, sort of it’s over. It’s an end, right? It ends. But think of the word always, always is enlists. It’s, it’s, it’s warm, it’s cozy, it’s kind of like what the sun feels like, on your face, it just feels good. And I just feel like, that’s what really people need to think about is that they always deserve to live happily ever. But but the pathway of self discovery and to get to that always place is really the requirement of us as people to really, again, self awaken and self reflect and, and think about what is necessary for us to have security. In my book, I talk a lot about the fact that I, I always thought security would be making a lot of money. Well, I’ve made money, and I’ve lost money, and I’ve made money, and that hasn’t necessarily given me happiness. And then I thought, well, if I meet the most perfect person in the world and fall in love, then I’ll be happy. Well, I fallen in love and out of love. And sure, you know that that didn’t make me happy. So I realized that it was really about myself, it was more about the emotional security and stability of do I like myself, do I want to be me? Am I comfortable in my skin? And I think that when we get to the point of finding comfort within ourselves, and we like who we are, that drives us to success in so many areas of our lives, or so many facets, much like a diamond shines through the facets, so do we as people, and I think that’s really the goal. And I think that when we and this is part of my success is that I really like being me. I mean, honestly, DJ, the only thing I would change about me is I’d like to be four inches taller, so I’d look better. But other than that, you know, because I’m a short guy. But other than that, I, I absolutely. Somebody once said to me, if you could be anyone in the world, who would you want to be? And I said, I’d want to be me. I don’t want to be anybody but me. Because you know what? This other person, I might have their baggage, you know, it’s the idea that the grass is never greener on the other side. And you really don’t want to be somebody else because you don’t know what they go through. You know, sometimes people think, Oh, I wish I was this agent or that agent because they do a ton of business. Okay, so you might have their business and you might, you know, earn their income. But then if you have to take everything else that’s going on in their life, you might say, Gee, I don’t want their life I’d rather have money. The money’s not worth it.

D.J. Paris 18:56
Yeah, there’s a there’s a great expression that says don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides, which is so easy to not do. Or in my case, I think it just as you were saying, I look at people who I think have it all figured out. And maybe they do, but likely they don’t. And I think well, if I if only I was x, more X or more y, then I would be the solution. Instead of saying, well as I am maybe that’s good enough. And then I stopped looking to change who I am. Obviously, there’s always ways to improve, but I stopped looking for the solution start realizing as I am is pretty good. Or at least I can learn to become good with it. So I could not agree more with that messaging. I think it’s so important. Well said, by the way.

Michael Rosenblum 19:44
Well, I agree with you. And you know, it’s interesting because we all have those moments in our careers where we question whether we did something right or did we handle the situation appropriately and that kind of brings us sent to a concept of, you know, self confidence and self esteem. And, you know, what, what’s the difference between those two. And I think, you know, we realized that self confidence is very much about trusting, trusting ourselves, and believing in ourselves. And when we trust ourselves to make decisions, and help other people, that we’re coming from a very authentic place. And I think self esteem is important. But the problem with self esteem is, it can also bring us into that sort of darkness of arrogance, where or we become so cocky, by doing so many transactions, that sometimes we say, I’m not going to deal with this person. Or this, you know, I don’t want to deal with taking this transaction on or you don’t serve as somebody because you become a little bit too big for your britches, because you say yourself, well, you’ve seen yourself in a string of transactions, and you think it’s going to continue. But it’s not, because what’s going to happen is the minute that you become a little too arrogant for yourself, and you think that, Oh, my God, I’m this big broker, and I do all this business, and I can treat people any way I want is your downfall. I mean, that’s the end of it, because it’s sort of like, you know, one bad performance on the stage. And the audience is certainly not going to have the best commentary or reviews to give to friends, which that’s going to end. So in this business, it’s really important to be confident in your skill sets, your abilities, your knowledge, you know, and the whole factor of trust, and how that sort of permeates to everything that you do. But it’s also important to, to realize that, that’s going to be your staying power. And I just really feel that’s something that’s so vital, because sometimes I see agents who were on the rise, and I’ve seen this, and then the way that they treat their clients, I think to myself, Oh, my God, how can you do that? How can you behave that way? I wouldn’t want you it goes back to what we were talking about earlier that, I always try to frame my mind of how I would want a broker to treat me if they were handling my transaction.

D.J. Paris 22:40
So I recently rented a storage facility or a storage unit and a storage facility and really didn’t need much space. So I actually got the smallest available space that they had. So this is a very small, a smaller transaction, to you know, their overall business, I’m probably the cheapest storage locker they sell. And I will tell you that, you know, you would have thought that I was the most expensive client bringing in the most amount of revenue, they have hundreds and hundreds of units, all of which I think are more expensive than mine, mine probably doesn’t even register in their in their overall profitability. But these two people who who helped me get my locker treated me as if I were their most important client. And it is, it’s it’s such an unusual experience for me as a consumer. And such a great reminder of really, no matter what profession you’re in to treat your customers that way. And this obviously is something that you do with your clients. But I have told that story to everybody now, but you’re not going to believe I pay these guys 30 bucks a month. And you would think I am their most important client when I know I am their least important, but they treat me as if I’m a big deal. And and I just tell that story to everybody. And I’ve probably referred them five or their clients as a result. So I think you know what you were.

Michael Rosenblum 24:06
And you think that’s the reason why they treated you because it’s sort of the perpetual marketing and the fact that and this is what the books about kindness, it’s happiness, it’s when we’re happy. We’re so productive, we’re so willing to give of ourselves and all of these incredible things begin to unfold. It’s like a life of richness, when you’re happy. And when you’re miserable or when you’re unhappy. You’re just not as productive. You just don’t achieve and, look, it’s hard. We all have those days where we do things that were naughty. Like for instance, I’m a happy person but sure I’ve cut people off the whole Lane in a hurry when I’m in a hurry. Because you know, I’m in a rush to get somewhere because I’m late and thinking I don’t want to be late for the appointment. But you know what, that was terrible of what I did. But you know, I you know, I tried to make up for it. I tried to be conscious like I just did something that was wrong. So you know, then Next person who wants to cut in front of me, I let him I mean, you know, we all have those moments where we do things that aren’t right. But gosh, if we can recognize it, and then try to do better, when we know better, I think that kind of brings us that bounce back to happiness. You know, that’s what’s important.

D.J. Paris 25:19
Well, and, and it’s so infectious as well, I mean, the simple act of being, you know, truly happy or content, or fulfilled is maybe even my favorite word. Because if you’re truly fulfilled, people can see it, they can smell it. It’s noticeable, it’s infectious. And it brings out the best in others, obviously, you know, this as well. So I couldn’t agree more of the meshing. And we should, again, I want to mention the book, at least one more time, because not only is Michael having a tremendous amount of success with this book, but it has a perfect five star ranking on Amazon, which is not, I mean, if you have just one review, and it’s your mother review, I get that, of course, you probably have a perfect five star review, because many, many reviews, all of which are five stars. So that just goes to show you how important this book is and how it’s resonating with your readers. So if you if you haven’t already purchased the book, please, please go do that have happily ever always. And Michael, what I would like to end with is, of course, as you are a real estate broker in addition to a best selling author, it and by the way, Michael, you know, is one of the top if not the top broker as far as production in Gold Coast and many other neighborhoods of Chicago and the suburbs. But if there are any buyers or sellers out there who would love to work with a broker like yourself, what’s the best way that they should reach out to you?

Michael Rosenblum 26:48
Well, they can go to our website happily ever always.com Or they certainly can call my office at 312-893-8162. And of course, all that information is on my website. And it’s very kind of you to certainly plug me it’s very nice, you know, I just wanted to go back to something we were saying earlier about the infectious aspects of sort of happiness, it’s, it’s kind of like think about if you ever go to Starbucks, which many people listening probably do. Imagine one day you just pay for the person behind you. You say to the cash, yes, you know, can you up my bill $3. And, you know, I’m not a coffee drinker. So if I use the wrong amount, I apologize to all your coffee drinkers, but I don’t know, you just put something towards the next person. And you imagine their face that excitement, okay, then where I’m going with this DJ is that excitement of what that person says to you, thank you, or smiles or it just lights up their life, you know, for that moment or that day and they’d become Can you imagine probably more productive because now they have this adrenaline rush, rush of happiness. But imagine what that does for you. Now, as you go through your day, that adrenaline rush of somebody just being like, just absolutely shocked and surprised in a good way. And can you imagine all the perpetual continuation, I suppose I’m sort of sounding very idealistic, but it’s just the resignation of energy of happy energy when we do these kinds of things. And then, gosh, you know, maybe you end up getting a new buyer that day, who, who rings your phone, I mean, the Universe works in such a profound way. And when you really frame yourself into trying to be, you know, a kind person, a happy person, it just, it resonates in just so many different areas of your life and, and getting back to the book listened in the book I talk about, I certainly have weathered a lot of bad storms in my life. I mean, I spent years in litigation, I had all kinds of different things that have occurred to me, which people think, wow, how do you survive? And, you know, there were moments where I was absolutely devastated. But I also realized that, you know, it was me, I had to pick myself up I had to keep moving forward. No buddy, could help me more than I could help myself. And of course, we always depend on, you know, the kindness of strangers, but we also realize that sometimes the people in our lives who are haters end up helping us platform to a better place because we get to the point where we realize we’re not going to let those people be mean to us. You know, we’ve all had those stories in real estate where We work with, you know, a buyer who’s a liar or a seller who’s just absolutely, you know, so difficult and so unappreciative because they think we have a wand and we can just wave it, and we’re going to sell their property. And it just doesn’t work that way. There’s, there’s just so many things that happen. But when we sort of stabilized ourselves and into a good mindset, it just seems like our brains flooded with so many ways to overcome, you know, bad things. And, and DJ, you know, it’s interesting, if we think of the word manure, which of course is disgusting, and everyone will probably have like a frown on their face. Sure, where’s this guy going? manure, it’s so disgusting, it stinks. It’s repugnant. But when you mix it with the soil, it actually allows us to grow our vegetables, which sustain life. So I guess what I’m saying is sometimes the most hideous things in life turn out to be blessings in disguise.

D.J. Paris 31:07
Yeah, and life is, as you know, has ups and downs, you don’t have much control over these external factors that just come and go. And obviously, you’ve, you’ve been through some trials, and you’ve come out the other side going, well, the manure actually helped foster this beautiful garden, ultimately, and I think that’s just true. And so I think you’re right, like the quest is not to never have bad experience bad days or bad experiences, because those are gonna come no matter what. It’s how we bounce back. And I think you’re right by empathy, kindness, intimacy, all of those things. Really just foster you know, that that sense of fulfillment and happiness and I love I love the idea of happily ever always as opposed to after because it get after what, right i after what, no, it’s now and always I love that.

Michael Rosenblum 32:01
So always endless. Yes. Well, again,

D.J. Paris 32:04
to whether you’re interested in working with Michael in real estate, obviously, how you can visit him happily ever always.com, which highlights his career as a real estate broker. Also, this book you need to purchase. Again, it has a perfect five star rating on Amazon, which is really is about oppressive as a fetus, you can get especially in self help, that’s very even more difficult to do. But he has done it. So and he is on this this big, promotional tour for the book. So please, let’s support Michael. And let’s, let’s go pick up that book. Again, if you want to work with Michael, you can contact him directly happily ever always.com. Michael, thank you so much for being on the show. I know, you’re again, you don’t have time to do this yet you’ve made time and that really speaks to your character. And again, probably no coincidence on why you’re so successful as well. So we couldn’t be more grateful that you spent some time with us. So on behalf of Michael and myself, thank you for listening. We’ll be back in a week with another episode. And Michael, thank you again.

Michael Rosenblum 33:13
It’s my pleasure. I’m flattered and humbled that you even had me so thank you so much.

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Craig Fallico has over seven thousand contacts in his sphere of influence. That’s what happens when you remain a top producer for 37 years without one down year. Craig discusses how his previous careers of teaching and coaching perfectly equipped him to become successful at real estate. His warmth, empathy, and kindness are evident as Craig talks about the distinction between production goals and “helping goals.” The Fallico Team is one of the top producing teams at Dreamtown, and after listening to this episode, you’ll understand why!

Craig Fallico can be reached at teamfallico@dreamtown.com and 847.226.0834

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host through the show, I believe this is our 75th episode. So a little milestone for us. So thank you to everyone who’s listened, because without you, there wouldn’t be even 74 other episodes, I would have quit after the first one. But the audience keeps growing, which I know I say every week, but it’s true. And it’s really exciting. So I’m so grateful that people find value in it. And if you’re new to the show, what we do is interview top 1% producers, I just did a search of all the producers in Chicago just yesterday, including the suburbs, there’s over 40,000, which means we talked to essentially the top 400 and find out exactly what they they’ve done and what they continue to do to grow their business so that you can learn from the best. And I wanted to give you a piece of advice that I just was thinking about as a marketing guy. That’s really what I do. Zillow just put out their consumer home Trend Report for 2018. And it’s really amazing. If you haven’t seen it, you can just Google search for it. It’s got so much great data. I mean, nobody has more data on consumers buying or selling homes and Zillow, obviously. And I saw this statistic that I thought was pretty interesting. And I thought I’d pass it through before we get to our great interview with Craig Valco, which is that 28% And we’re just talking about home sellers here. Okay, home sellers, 28% of them, how did they find their realtor 28% were referred by friends, relatives, neighbors, or colleagues. And I want let’s think about that for just a moment that these are people that have already purchased a home. So they’ve already worked with a realtor in the past. And still about a third of them when they went to sell the property said asked around to their friends and family. Hey, who do you use? Who’s good, right? So that’s a pretty interesting statistic for me. So like, what can you actually do with that? Well, the obvious the most obvious way is, of course, to make sure that your friends family and previous clients know that giving you a referral or passing your name over to people they know who might need your services is the best compliment they could pay you. However, I find that just putting that as your signature line, you’ll see that often with realtors that say hey, the best compliment you can give me is to send me a referral or I’m never too busy for your referrals. I don’t think that gets the job done. But I also don’t think asking for a referral is necessarily the best way to go. That’s sort of an old school mentality, I found that if you do a really good job, you typically don’t need to ask, but you do need to remind people that you are taking referrals. So how do you do that? Well, in my opinion, as a marketing guy, I think the best way to do that is to show that you care about these clients after the sale. So what does that look like? And by the way, when I think when when they know that you care, and you’re routinely in their life, after the sale after the transaction closes, they will just automatically think about you because they’ll have warm feelings, you will have gone that extra mile to stay in touch. And then when they have friends and family that need help with real estate stuff, obviously your name will be first of mind. So how do we do this? Well, the easiest way is go through all of your clients that you’ve ever worked with. You shouldn’t of course know everybody’s birthday, right? That’s the most obvious thing. But what are you doing on their birthday? Are you sending them an email? Okay, that’s fine. Are you writing them a handwritten note? That’s better? Are you calling them that’s probably equal to writing them a handwritten note. And you should be doing really all of those things, right? Send them an email, give them a phone call and write them a handwritten note that it’s not that hard to do, right? It’s just a couple of minutes per day, most likely, or do at least one of those three, I would say if you have to do just one of the three call them. I as much as I love handwritten notes. I think the phone call goes a long way. And if you’re not really wanting to talk to them, because you don’t really want to bother people on their birthday, I understand that. You can use sly dial if you’re not familiar, just Google it. It’s like 10 cents, and it’ll send your voicemail directly into their voicemail. So you could call them and say, Hey, I just realized it was your birthday. Wanted to congratulate you. So I have worked with a lot of professionals. I have a financial advisor I have you know, I have a realtor, I

have an accountant. I have an insurance person. I’ve got you know, a mortgage, but nobody contacted me on my birthday. Not one right and I’m not putting any of my people who work with me down. I’m grateful. They’re awesome. But none of them do it. You could be the only person that actually picks up the phone and calls them or slide dials into their voicemail. So that’s my only little tip of the day is in by the way, you shouldn’t just do birthday but that’s the most obvious one right? If you know their kids are going off to college or going to, you know, middle school or high school for the first time, or graduating or anything substantial in your clients life, you should know about at least a few items, you should have it in a CRM, and it should remind you, oh, hey, so and so’s child just entered first grade, right? That’s really good stuff. And you contact them and say, Hey, I was just thinking about you, I know so and so just did this in your family, and I just wanted to say congrats. And then you don’t have to ask for a referral, they’re gonna be so blown away that you remember that you thought about them, and that you didn’t ask for something at the end of the call, because it’s heartfelt and as genuine, that they will pass your name along to every buddy, you know. So anyway, just a quick suggestion there. And, uh, thanks for listening, I’ll try to incorporate more of these marketing ideas, because that’s what I do. I’m a marketing person into the intros of these podcasts because we’ve been getting feedback where people seem to appreciate that. So I apologize for the duration, the length of this intro, but I thought I’d try something new. And if you’d liked it, let me know. And I’ll keep doing it. If you say it’s terrible. Stop doing that, get to the interview, I will stop doing it and get to the interview, which I’m about to now. And this is one of my favorite interviews we’ve done. We’re going to talk about genuine and warm and empathic, and a very successful person for well over 30 years Craig Falco is up next.

Craig Falco is one of a kind he is because he’s been a successful broker realtor since 1981, has helped 1000s of clients and friends achieve their real estate goals. Plus, he had two great careers as a teacher and a coach for I believe now 37 years in his words, the career all comp the careers all complemented each other educating and motivating people about whom you care. That’s a quote from Craig Craig takes the time to get to know his clients and truly cares about them. And their dreams, once the relationship is established, puts his 37 plus years of experience to work for them. And the end result is nothing short of perfect. He has built his three decades of success on hard work, integrity and honesty. And his accolades only continue to grow. Craig’s father had been in the real estate business since the 1960s. So Craig learned the ropes early on, he worked side by side with his father for many years, as the family business continues at Dream town, as Craig and his son Nick now work as the team leaders of the top producing team at the northwest side, Dream town office, that is a big, big deal. Dream Town is a big company here in Chicago. Everyone, of course, already knows that. But it’s worth mentioning, Team Falco has been featured in Chicago agent magazine for who’s who and Chicago real estate and as rising stars select T and top agent magazine, which is the magazine I also write for. And also, Craig is and his team are top 1% producers, which is also a big deal because they’re 40,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area. So with all that being said, we are very excited to welcome Craig balco to the show, Craig, thank you.

Craig Fallico 8:04
Thank you, thank you so much for doing this. And I need to say

D.J. Paris 8:07
this is true. This is this is a little bit, a little bit in the weeds, but Craig and his team was struggling to get the audio working. And if they are as dedicated to their, to their clients, as they were to get this working. They work diligently for 30 straight minutes, and they got it to work. But I was like impressed, most people would have given up and just said, Oh, I’m done. And he didn’t. So thank you for, for doing that work. Because it’s it I know, that was a hassle. So thank you. Yeah,

Craig Fallico 8:37
giving up is not enough.

D.J. Paris 8:39
It’s clearly that is not you know, so So tell us a little bit. Uh, you’ve been in real estate since 1981, I believe. Is that correct? Yes. So, yeah, tell us that story.

Craig Fallico 8:49
So I got into it, because, you know, I was a teacher. So, contrary to popular belief, teachers do not make millions of dollars. And my wife is a homemaker. And we have two kids. So there’s no way I’m going to feed the family on a teacher’s salary. And my dad was in real estate. And of course, you know, he had such a great attitude. He loved life. He loved his clients, and I just loved what what it looked like, you know, it looked like it was rewarding fun. And it was perfect for a teacher because most people want to look at houses in the evening or on weekends. And that or often as a teacher, you take all the time that you that you all your breaks and everything to do the real estate business, which is what I did. And they’re perfect mirror careers, you know, because each day in the classroom, you’re motivating and inspiring and you’re becoming motivated and inspired. You know, people ask me What I miss most most about teaching and it’s the natural motivation and inspiration. And real estate gives you that you know, because you’re always educating people, areas, pricing, market conditions, more get you information, everything. So you’re still you get to be an educator when you’re a real estate broker, if you care. You know, one of the things the the mantra for me as a teacher was, kids don’t care how much you know, they know how much you care. And I really think that that’s the client’s situation as well. I think clients care that you’re professional, and you know, something, but there’s no question that if they sense that you care about them, they’re there, they want you to represent them. They they trust you, you know that they know that you care about them. You know, I don’t want to say that I love my clients, because that’s, that’s a very strong word. Sure. But But I constantly and always, which is probably why I’ve never had a bad year, is because I really care about them. I put their needs first. I put their interests first. A great example of that is with no, I brought my son into it. Right. So Right. I, he always when he first came into business, he said, I want to produce $10 million. Sure, who does it? Yeah, right. Exactly. I said to him, I said, No, you don’t. You want to help as many people as you can. Right? So rather than setting a goal of 10 million, why don’t you set a goal of helping 50 people, or 35 people or whatever it is your first year, because that’s what this is about is helping people and then think of how you build your business. Right? So if you help 50 people, and they refer one person, now you have 100 clients, you’re so right, right. And so like, some people only focus on big properties, right million dollars or more sure. And they do 10 million, but it’s only eight transactions. So they only help eight people, they made good money, but they only helped eight people. So their their book of business, their business that they’re building, would take much, much longer. Where my my theory, my practice, it’s not a theory, it’s a practice is help as many people as you possibly can. And, and what that turns into is immediately my sphere is 7000 7000 in my sphere, of influence of people I’ve helped with real estate, whether it’s purchasing, selling, renting, whatever it is, and their friends and family. So and that just continues to grow. And now my son in just a few years has over 1000 in his fear. So the practice works. It’s not a theory. It’s a practice, and it works. But it’s

D.J. Paris 12:33
such a it’s such a great way to to it’s not even just a saying or or something that sounds cool, or sounds right. It actually does. Like you said, it’s a practice that works. And I think you’re so right. I interviewed this is a many, many episodes ago, probably 30 or 40 episodes ago, we interviewed Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg from their team. And it Keller Williams and I had asked them, right, Dre guys with great reputations, wonderful guys. And I had asked actually, Josh said, Well, what are your goals, production goals, when you similar to the story you had with your son? And he goes, Yeah, we don’t think like that. And he didn’t use the word help. But he talked about, you know, if we, if we were specifically talking about acquiring new business, he goes, Yeah, you know, if we talk to X number of people a day, we will get to whatever production goals that you know, they we don’t even set production goals. But we will get to those numbers just by default of the number of people we talked to, which is not as elegant of a way as the way you said it, which I think is better, which is how many people can I help this year, and as we know, the law of reciprocity, people who you help and and that you care about not just help but that you care and help are going to tell every single person they know about how great you are, which obviously is, you know, was resulted in a 37 year pretty impressive real estate career with no doubt there’s

Craig Fallico 13:59
no doubt that 789 That’s 8182 83 that’s the many recessions of the 90s. None of those years were now they were average. You know what they weren’t down? Why not making a good living? Yep. Making taking. I took care of all my giant family, you know,

D.J. Paris 14:17
unbelievable. Yeah. And were you born here in Chicago or I was

Craig Fallico 14:21
I was born here in Chicago. Correct. And I lived in Chicago, on berry street till I was a youngster my dad moved us out in when I was in first grade to Park Ridge. Sure. And I’ve been here ever since. And this is my hometown and it’s our area of focus, of course. But of course the northwest side of the city, the northwest suburbs. Look at I’ve sold properties in Antioch. Lansing, sure, West Chicago, because they’re my clients. In You know, so many of my clients are my friends, you know, and they didn’t start as friends. They started as clients So think about that, too, you know, it’s been it for me, it’s always rewarding. You know, I never, I never get up and say, I don’t want to do real estate, you know, I get up every day and say, this is this is a great profession. Now, it’s very demanding, like any profession, right? Sure. If you want to be good at it, you got to do it. And you got to do it all the time, you know, and there’s no substitute for that. You know, I always tell people, they, you know, they, they showed the the dream town top producers at our 20th anniversary, right? Sure. And I was one of them. Of course, I was one of the younger ones. So think about that. So that’s amazing. I told my team was at the thing. And I said, See that, look, all you have to do is work really hard for 30 or 40 years? And boom, you’re an overnight success.

D.J. Paris 15:49
Right? Yeah, that has been the, the the rule and not the exception of about every single person we’ve ever had on the show. These are all top one percenters like yourself and your team. They none of them, although with maybe one or two exceptions, really, everybody had a tough first couple of years, because that’s how it works. But they stuck with it. And they continued to help. And and, you know, the clients know, they cared about it. And then over time, you know, becomes all referral based, or at least mostly referral based. And then they, you know, 20 years later, they’re, they’re doing exactly what they, you know, production wise what they want to, but that’s really impressive. And I know, over the years, you of course, have seen Gosh, knows how many brokers come and go, who could have maybe didn’t do the work necessary? What What have you seen, that separates somebody who aside from just, of course, the hard work, which is hopefully obvious to everyone listening, although maybe not. What other? If you have any other advice? If you talk to a newer broker, like, here’s what you should go out and do or somebody that’s just looking to increase production?

Craig Fallico 17:00
Well, I think it’s, you know, right now, you have to obviously be, you have to be involved in social media, and you have to stay on the cutting edge of every new technology. And really, that’s where my son, Nick has enhanced our business. You know, it’s been great. He’s, he’s put us on all of these avenues of using technology properly, and good follow up. But I don’t think that there’s any, what’s beautiful about the technological age, is that you still have to have a soul, right? In order to be successful, you know, you still have to be able to connect with people. You still, like think about real estate, especially right? Is anyone ever going to buy a house without ever seeing it? I mean,

D.J. Paris 17:46
maybe maybe an investor, but that’s about it, or multibillionaires

Craig Fallico 17:49
or something, right? Really, the 99.999% of us have to see the house, of course, and, and so you have or the apartment, or the condo, or whatever we’re talking about are the two flat, and so they’re gonna meet somebody there. And can you imagine if they walk up and they meet somebody, and they don’t trust this person, right? Think they’re gonna sign a million dollar contract or a $500,000 contract or a $2 million dollar contract with somebody they don’t trust? I don’t think so. Right. You know, and, and, and that’s the thing about this business is it’s very human. It, it definitely requires a humanity level humanity’s understanding. It requires EQ, right? Emotional intelligence, because you can’t connect with people, unless you are soulful, unless you’re caring unless you’re have some kind of empathy, unless you have some kind of expertise in the field of connecting, you know, and I think that’s, that’s absolutely critical. And people say, well, that’s natural. I said, No, it can be developed. Yes, absolutely. It’s, it’s developed with practice, you know, get in front of as many people as you can, obviously, if you’re, if you really care about a person, you could, you could fumble a bunch of stuff. And they’re okay with that. Yes, as you can.

D.J. Paris 19:18
Well, and just to interject for a moment, because I think what you said is so important and easily forgotten, in particular, by newer brokers whose biggest fear and it’s a reasonable fear, it’s a rational fear, I’d have the exact same fear which is I’m brand new or newer. And I’m there’s going to be things I don’t know the answers to, and I’m afraid of looking silly in front of a client. And while again, I believe that is a reasonable thing to be to be have some anxiety about. The reality of it is you will largely be forgiven if the client first of all the client believes you to be honest. And then number two, if they believe that you care about them, and you go, Oh, hang on, let me get an answer for you. I just want to check with my team and get back to you or I don’t want got 100% on that, let me get back to you. People are largely okay with that answer, if they feel that you are that you care. So I, that is

Craig Fallico 20:09
so great that you said that because that’s going to help a lot of people. And I use that with my new team members, I tell them look at if you care, everything else is going to be okay us, because you’re going to because you’re going to do everything you can for them. And they know that. And that’s what they want. That’s what they want. That’s the person they weren’t working for them. You know? Yeah,

D.J. Paris 20:29
I mean, you know, it’s funny, I was just thinking as this example of, and again, this is really more of an opportunity for it. Well, no, I take that back, I was gonna say it’s an opportunity for mortgage lenders. But I remember when I bought a condo, I don’t know, 12 years ago or so. And I ended up refinancing it I don’t know, three or four times over the over that period. And not once and this is not a slight towards my lender. But I bet this is pretty commonplace. Not once whenever rates dropped, dropped, or it made sense to refinance. Did my lender ever proactively contact me and say, Hey, I was just thinking about you rates have dropped, and you may want to just look at refinancing. Now, maybe there’s a reason he didn’t do that, or whatever, or maybe just forgot about me, I don’t know. But I know that every time I and by the way, my broker didn’t contact me either. And I’ve always thought, well, that’s kind of an interesting opportunity for brokers to reach out. So if you’re looking for reasons to care about somebody after the sale, even if it’s just hey, it’s that school time, and I know that kids are back in school, how’s that going for you or whatever. But certainly an idea is to contact them and say, I don’t know, if your lenders caught, you know, maybe now’s not the right time to do that. But, you know, if there’s ever those kinds of opportunities, where you think, Wait, you know, maybe they should refinance. Another reason to reach out and show that you care.

Craig Fallico 21:48
You’re right. And that’s See, that’s the part of our business right now that’s under attack, is our sphere is under attack from technology, right? Great. All of the algorithms, you know, it, if we’re not staying in touch with our people, who’ve we’ve, we’ve built this wonderful trusting relationship with them, we’re going to lose them, you know, it’s unlike before, you know, like, like, 1020 years ago, this was your guy, this was your guy, right? Or this was your gal. Now, they’re being attacked by these these computer programs and these algorithms, and you know, they’re not even humans, but they don’t know that. And there’s, you know, someone’s reaching out, and I’m saying, Hey, did you go about this, and they’re reading it, right. They’re reading what they like, what their interests are, what they’re doing. And so they’re even attacking them at the right time, too. So we’re what I’m telling my team now, and this is just this year, I started this, we’re saying, Hey, guys, stay in touch, stay in touch, you’ve earned their respect, you’ve earned their trust, you’ve earned their business, make sure you keep it, you know. And that’s by staying in touch. And not just with, you know, like, not just simply through a CRM, right, and talking about, you know, community events and inviting them places. And, like you said, checking in on school, like, whenever when rates go down, I blast all my people and say, just what you said, Hey, if you’re not going to take advantage of these rates and purchase, maybe take advantage of them and refinancing, you know, so I do that. And what you said is so, so big, is just stay in touch with your sphere, you’ve earned their business, you’ve earned their trust, you know, just just stay in touch. You don’t even have to do more than that. You have to give them exactly. Check in with them. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 23:43
you don’t have to give them anything you’d like you said, I think what you said is really, really big, which is you’ve earned, you’ve earned their their you know, that that they’re in your sphere, you’ve earned that in whatever way that was. And the other assumption I think, is a good assumption to make is just assume they’re going to forget that you’re a realtor, if you don’t stay in touch, because we’re not that important to anyone else. Right? But people remember that. Oh, yeah. Craig’s Craig’s a realtor and he did a really good job. I mean, it’s just I always say assume everyone forgets about you. But they won’t forget about you. Of course if you stay in touch so right. Why What a great Tell Tell me about about your team. I obviously your your son is on there is it is it just you and your son? Are there more members?

Craig Fallico 24:27
Well, Nick and I are the team leaders. Yes. We have eight other people. We have Kristen, who is a city gal. She focuses a lot on our city business, which is great. We love having her there. We have Pat who is has an HVAC background. So he’s like, you know, like our blue collar her like response guy, he’s really connects with them. We have an attorney who’s also a realtor. So he’s, he’s a great fit for so many of our clients that you know are very I focus like that on lawn stuff, you know, like you don’t I’m saying I’m more serious buyers that we AM, we have a husband and wife team that’s really down to earth. They’re both teachers. And they both do real estate and teach following in my footsteps. And, and one of and he is my former student athlete.

D.J. Paris 25:20
Oh my gosh, he’s, that’s amazing.

Craig Fallico 25:22
I gotta tell you a story about. So I was. So one of you have a bunch of brokers, you might even interviewed some of them that were my former students or student athletes. And one of them was shadowing me as a real estate broker coming into real estate. And she noticed that a lot of my clients and customers were my former student athletes. And she said, Boy, that’s a great way to get clients is you know, having taught them. And I said, not if you’re a crappy fat.

D.J. Paris 25:51
That’s true.

Craig Fallico 25:53
So so obviously, I did an okay job in the teaching end of it today, I have all these clients and customers. But but it’s so true. I mean, if you do a good job, and I’m very proud of my three careers, I had a great coaching career. I had a great coach wrestling here in Illinois, I had a great teaching career. And I’m having a great real estate career. And you know what, I apply the same philosophy and all of it. I absolutely love the people I work for, you know, and that’s all my students, my athletes, my clients, I do, I put them first. You know, my wife often says to me, she says, Well, you quit, quit giving. Like, I’m always willing to do something for somebody, you know, run and do it. And, you know, don’t give your time away. You don’t give your money away. I said, Honey, it’s worked so far, hasn’t it? So it’s alright, let’s just keep it going. Yeah, but she she says it tongue in

D.J. Paris 26:48
cheek Well, and, and to honor you for even doing this podcast, you are also giving your time and money away to to spend time with us. And again, it’s it’s greatly appreciated. When I first started, the podcast was this idea of giving back to the to the community, and it doesn’t make me a good person to do it. I thought it was a good idea. But I wasn’t sure that top producers in particular people like yourself, who are way too busy to spend this point almost an hour now. You know, we’re busy day, which is it’s busy. And I thought they’re not going to have time because they don’t have time. And what I found is exactly the opposite. Well, number one, they don’t have time. And number two, they make time. And it’s it’s incredible. I don’t know that anyone’s ever turned us down. And it’s you know, there’s it’s really impressive, but I think it speaks to how much brokers who are doing well like yourself who have earned that spot, feel about giving back and just giving each other?

Craig Fallico 27:45
I have this team member Chris, who was my former client, right? So now that’s that’s a problem if you have all your clients as your team. But, but Chris is, Chris is great. But but just like you said, you know, he said to me the other day, he goes, Well, you share. I mean, I’m here in my big office, I share with everybody, I tell people what I’m doing and everything. And I said, Chris, I don’t think you’ll find a long term successful person that isn’t happy to share their strengths, their successes. And here’s the other thing, because I was a teacher probably I don’t know. I love learning. So I’m also asking, it doesn’t matter if you’re in it for a year. And think how much my son has already taught me just in a few years. You’re right. I mean, I you have to also be ready to learn and change and evolve and, and get better, right? Get better. And that comes with sharing. There’s no way you can’t get better by sharing what you do, how you do it, what works. Also share what doesn’t work. You know, I do this Monday morning quarterback same with your team. And I and I go over the whole week. And I you know, because you know the Monday morning quarterback they know everything

after the fact. Yeah, right.

Exactly. So I tell him all the things that went well, the past week, or all or some things that didn’t, and tell him watch out for this, or I made this mistake, don’t you do this? You know, that’s part of it, too. sharing everything. You know your successes.

D.J. Paris 29:20
Well, that not to put you on the spot. But since you brought it up, could you share something that you did that didn’t work? And again, I’m the same way there’s a million things I’ve tried in my own business that that has not worked. But any advice you have of things to maybe avoid or things that didn’t yield good results for you that you maybe would want other people to hear to save them maybe some of that headache.

Craig Fallico 29:44
I think I think that you you should never not try certain things that you have a short feeling about. It might not work out. I’ll give you an example. So I’m driving around town. I’m seeing all these garage sales, right? So I said hey, Nik, you’re my son. Why don’t we make teen follicle dream town garage?

D.J. Paris 30:05
That is a great idea. I think that’s a great idea, isn’t it? I think so sure. Never heard of it. It’s great.

Craig Fallico 30:11
Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was too, you know what? Nobody called? No, we put it on social media, we suggest a call and we’ll bring it to you, you know, you don’t even have to, there’s no money involved. There’s nothing, just email us or call us, and I’ll bring it to you. So nobody was responding. So then I was like, driving around, stopping at people’s garage sales and saying, look, at this time, I’ll give you this site. You know, I mean, unless they knew me, they didn’t want it. So it was I thought it was a great

D.J. Paris 30:41
as somebody who’s a professional marketer, to me, it still sounds like a great idea. But but but it didn’t, it didn’t work.

Craig Fallico 30:47
Well. Just just Yeah, didn’t work. So now I’m

D.J. Paris 30:54
glad that is so funny. I thought for sure. That would have followed in the success category. But the point is, is that you had a thought and an idea you executed it. And again, not everything works. In fact, most things probably don’t work. But but it’s a good it’s still a good idea.

Craig Fallico 31:11
Yeah. And I, you know, I’m not going to give up on no trying to get

D.J. Paris 31:14
sober. But again, if we break down and again, that particular idea didn’t hit, but if we think about, well, what what’s the impetus of the city I want to provide value to because what if you have a garage sale? The biggest issue is getting people to, to know about it, you can post it on Facebook, and maybe you posted on Craigslist, or you

Craig Fallico 31:33
know, next we did Oh, thank you for reminding me. Yeah, that was Nick’s idea. Well, not only do we just give them signs, advertise, this

D.J. Paris 31:39
gets better and better, I still think this is a great idea.

Craig Fallico 31:43
We advertise that we did. So the two or three that that took us up on it. We put their their address of their garage sale on all of our social media, everywhere.

D.J. Paris 31:53
No, it’s It’s but again, you know, what I was, what I was getting to with that was you were still just providing free value to someone who may or may not admit in the market for real estate, but hey, we noticed you’re doing this, we thought this would help your business or your garage sale. And again, just that idea alone, if you constantly are thinking about what can I what value can I give to my sphere or strangers that would actually help them and in this case, I would think a garage sale sign would be very helpful. But regardless, if it doesn’t work or not, you just come up with another idea. And you keep you keep doing that. Correct. So So I love the the intention behind it is so big, and yes, of course you’re getting some advertising out of it. But at the very least you’re just giving people some really nice stuff without asking for anything in return.

Craig Fallico 32:41
Because, you know, I was driving around and looking at some of their signs. Oh, of course. Yeah. And I said, Geez, we could have I mean, doesn’t cost a lot, right? You make these nice signs for them. You know, obviously, our name gets out there. But But think of how nice it is for them. There’s a big blank, white square in the middle for their address. It’s a great idea. But

D.J. Paris 33:02
But again, it’s it’s this intention of just what can we do? What can how can we provide value and and then you know, you just keep keep refining it? Obviously you guys have been doing that for for too. Well, really three generations really? Which is correct.

Craig Fallico 33:17
No third generation realtor. Well, did you know this? Yes, something that’s very cool. We have sold a house a falaka has sold a house on every street.

D.J. Paris 33:29
That is amazing. That is really cool. I hope that’s hope you’re telling that story. Which of course even have some we have a map that is gonna say that is a quite as I can’t imagine anyone else in that area, or even maybe in any other suburb to could even say that. That’s impressive. So

Craig Fallico 33:53
it probably takes three.

D.J. Paris 33:55
That’s probably true, too. But the fact is, is you guys get to hang your hat on that. That’s that’s obviously, you know, that’s really important. And I know if I were listing a home in Park Ridge, and I would my first question if I, you know, wasn’t familiar with the realtor there? I’d say, who’s done the most business here? And, you know, and then I’d probably start there. So obviously, that’s you guys. So and I think that’s a perfect place to end is to say, you know, and I think I don’t this is this something that the audience already knows just listening to crack, but I think you can hear in his voice passion. But maybe even more important is is the sense of caring, it even comes through and how he just communicates with me. And obviously the audience so I think if nothing else you’re taking away, you know, obviously team Falco cares. And their success is followed from caring I imagined caring came first, as Craig has said, so what I’d like to do is make sure that if there are any buyers, sellers, renters, investors, people that are looking to work With Kreger his team, which you should consider working with them, because they’ve been around for a long time and have done very well and their clients all love them is to Well, first you should visit their website, which is Team falco.com. And Chris, what’s the best way that someone who wants to work with you or your team should get in touch?

Craig Fallico 35:19
So always, you know, the cell phone everybody texts or calls, so it’s 847-226-0834. That’s my cell, and then I can dispersed to the team. And then of course, our emails are easy to find. You can even just email us at Team Falco at Dream town.com

D.J. Paris 35:40
Yeah, correct. Thank you again, and to all the listeners, obviously, check out team falco.com Contact Craig or his team, if you’re interested in using any of their services. Also, just for our own website, if you’re unfamiliar, you can stream every episode we’ve ever done. I think this is by the way, our 74th or 75th episode, so huge milestone for us. We’re going to keep producing more episodes, but you can find us at keeping it real pod.com. Also, keeping it real pod is is how you find us on Facebook, which we will be linking of course to this episode to Craig’s team, as well as all of our other episodes are there so find us on Facebook find Craig’s team on Facebook, which is Team Falco and all the other social media platforms we are on they are on find us all stay in touch and we will see you on the next episode. Oh, by the way, if you have any other top producers we should be talking to please send us those recommendations. And Craig thanks again for your time today. You are more than generous. I thank you

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

The Jonathan Darin Team consists of Jonathan’s first real estate client, Jonathan’s sister, and his sister’s friend from grade school. They’ve also just added on another teammate to cover the city. In this episode Jonathan talks about how he built his team to five in just seven years, how he became a top producer very quickly, and why client appreciation events are essential to expanding and retaining his sphere of influence. Learn about this team of friends and family and why it’s working!

Jonathan Darin can be reached at 708-695-6177 and jonathan@homesbyjdt.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago. Real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, and I am your host. And welcome. Again, I think this is our 73rd episode. And if I’ve done the math, right, our third episode in three days, so we’re making up for being absent for about a week and a half, and giving you guys three episodes in three days, which is the most I think we’ve ever done. And we have plenty of more, plenty more that are in the can, as the expression goes, which means ready to be produced. And we have a whole list of dozens of other people waiting to be interviewed in the future. So I just wanted to say stay tuned. Thank us every so often for these long absences. It’s only because we get busy, this isn’t our day job. And I also wanted to remind everyone who’s listening, whether you’re new to the show, or if you’ve been a listener for quite some time, that we have this huge library of interviews that you really should check out. And the advice given in them by these top 1% producers is really is timeless. It’s so rarely, based on the what’s going on like currently in the market. It’s typically about, you know, hey, here’s how I started five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, in some cases, or I just started two years ago, right. And the stories are all very similar in the amount of work that’s required to build that kind of business. But in the approach is often a bit different. So if it was me, and I was out there producing Well, the reason we created the show was not just to create new episodes every week, of course, we are doing that. And we’re grateful for everyone who listens. But to remind everyone that we have 72 other episodes, that you should go back and just scan the titles. And these are people that you might even know that you wouldn’t maybe normally have access to, to hear their story to hear what they’re doing today, what they did at the beginning mistakes they made, what advice they have for brokers who are looking to increase production. So don’t forget that even though we’re putting out new episodes pretty regularly, we have this amazing, awesome library. And I hope to get that library up to 500 interviews at some point where we’ll have to go beyond 1% and go to maybe even the top 2% of producers, which would be very cool. Anyway. All right. So I’ve said enough about that. But also remember to send us your questions. We have some great guests on the show regularly like Carrie McCormack, Joel shop, Eric workman all sorts of great people who are coming on monthly to give their takes in their specific niches. So or if you just have questions for top producers, you can send those to us at keeping it real pod.com, which you can also find every single episode we’ve ever done, stream it live, or stream it directly from that website, or of course, iTunes, Google Play, anywhere else podcasts are served, you can also please follow us and find us on Facebook. So that’s keeping it real pod just search for that. And you’ll come across us and we also post all of our episodes there and other things as well. So thank you so much for listening, I’m excited to have made it over a year, didn’t think I wasn’t sure anyone would even care to listen when we first started. And thankfully, we now have 1000s of listeners, which is still just kind of cool. And we’re excited. And we’ll keep grinding these out if you keep listening. So thanks again, share this with another broker in your office if you think it would be helpful and keep keep those requests coming into We appreciate it. All right on to our interview with the Jonathan guarantee.

Jonathan Darren is the founder of the Jonathan Darren team with Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group. He’s been in the real estate industry for seven years and has been full time in sales for five of those years. In 2014. He started a team with one other agent, and now it consists of five full service agents. The team dynamic allows him and his team to serve a large geographical span including will cook and DuPage counties in 2017. Jonathan was honored with the Coldwell Banker 30 under 30 Award, which recognizes young agents not only for their sales achievements, but their community involvement as well. Also in 2017, his team was named to Coldwell bankers President circle, which is a very big deal. This is for teams with more than four members. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his family, friends, traveling and giving back to the community. And before I introduce him, I’d like everyone to check out his website. I was just telling him offline. This is one of the best real estate realtor websites I’ve seen, which is homes by J D. t.com. So well Come, Jonathan Darren,

Jonathan Darin 5:01
hey, DJ, thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 5:03
Thank you so much. We’re really excited to have you on the show. And you were always on our list to interview and we now finally are getting to do that. So, thanks. So my first question, my standard question. And I think a really interesting one for you, in particular, or at least our listeners to hear from you is how you got into real estate. So tell us that story.

Jonathan Darin 5:24
Yeah. So I’m actually a third generation realtor. My grandfather actually owns Coldwell Banker, the Real Estate Group, my mom’s in the industry, as well. But I always said that I would never get into the family business would never become a realtor was never going to do it. Well, I went to Eastern Illinois University study, business management knew I wanted to be involved in business of some sort. But again, never was going to be in the family business, never going to be a realtor. So I did a little stint in retail for a little bit like a management program. And that was not for me.

D.J. Paris 6:02
So I ended up failing retail is hard.

Jonathan Darin 6:05
The hours are not that good. Not saying that realtor hours are all that great. Well, that’s true. But when you’re stuck in a retail store, it’s you know, that that was not for me. So I ended up going to my grandfather, and my uncle at the time was the president of our company, and said, you know, is there anything I can do just kind of hold me over again, I don’t want to be in the family business. You know, is there anything I can do to help out until I can figure out what I truly want to do. And, you know, they were like, Oh, you could do this, you could do that, you know, whatever. And we kind of sat down and took a little bit deeper dive into it. And at that time, they didn’t really have anybody managing their internet leads department, which is what we developed. So they were getting all these internet leads back in like 2011. And they really weren’t being serviced, you know, they would go to the agent, and there was no follow up, nothing like that, to see how it was really short done. So we decided to start an internet leads department and from there, I am now in the family business. And that was in 2011. I did that for about two years. And we started we made that department profitable for the company. But I kind of learned the business from the inside out, you know, I saw how important follow up was, I saw how important it was to just kind of take that transaction from the start all the way to the finish. And I was like, Man, I think the real money is actually in sales. So like I said, I never thought I was going to do it. But while I was doing that, they allowed me to help some friends, some close friends and family. Because I was licensed at that time. Sure. I just I fell in love with it DJ I mean this this I have like a passion for real estate. And I guess people always say, well, it must have been in your blood. You know, you said you weren’t going to do it and and now you do it so. So you kind of fast forward that a little bit. And then in 2013 is kind of when I went full time, I trained somebody to take over that internet leads department and I was full time sales took the leap. And I really have never looked back from that point.

D.J. Paris 8:08
Well, let’s let’s talk about your team because you have a pretty interesting team. It’s not made up of random brokers who you meshed with personality wise, this is like a very specific and deliberate melding of people that have kind of a cool, coincidental, you know, sort of story to you and your, your sister. So tell us about the team.

Jonathan Darin 8:32
Yeah, so I started the team in 2014. With my team member John Bennett, sec. He actually was one of my first clients, I think he might have been like my second or third deal and him and I met just plan you know, Thursday night softball, kind of random, right? But he always had, he’d always talked to me about real estate and then him and one of our other buddies were actually looking for a place together kind of like an investment place. And we ended up selling him a house. So he came on the team. It was him and I for about two years together. Before I brought on my team member Patrick Mayer, and funny how that works is Patrick Mayer has been friends with my sister, Stephanie for since like first grade. Wow. So it’s just weird how this all came together. So right after that, is I brought on my sister then to my team. So Stephanie Darren, not my wife, my sister. A lot of people think that but brought her on she was going to be like my assistant and handle a lot of our paperwork and different things like that. Because she had another job at the time. Well, she started to kind of dabble in how I did and started helping friends and you know, some of her sphere and it’s taken off for her as well now so she’s a full service, you know agent as well. not just doing paperwork and things like that. So I have my sister, my sister’s best friend from first grade, I have a guy I played softball with and was one of my first clients. And then our most recent team member is Matt Lind. And he is actually based out of Chicago. So he’s gonna do a good job covering that market for us. And he happens to be one of my best friends, brothers. So crazy. It’s kind of crazy and unique of how that all came together. And it’s not that I wouldn’t hire anybody I didn’t know, it’s just, you know, it’s kind of worked out for us really, really well. There’s a lot of trust in this, like the way that we built the team. So I like to say that I’m lucky when it comes to that, because I know a lot of people struggle to find good team members.

D.J. Paris 10:48
Yeah, I think for sure, and the fact that it’s worked out so well, and it’s with people that you know, and trust and like is, before they even came on board is pretty unique, and certainly very cool. And I like the company I work at. It’s owned by one of my closest friends. And so it’s pretty cool to be able to build something with friends. And so I’m sure you feel the same way. So yeah, we all have

Jonathan Darin 11:13
like the same same goal in mind to you know, it’s not just about you know, because some teams are like, hey, it’s all about, like, you know, whoever’s name is on it. And, you know, I’ve made it very clear to them that, you know, just because it’s the Jonathan Darren team, it’s that’s not everything, you know, it’s, we’re all going to get our own in this. So it’s good.

D.J. Paris 11:33
Awesome. If we can, can we go back just briefly to internet leads, because I think you’re the first person I’ve talked to, who has talked about experience with internet leads, obviously, working with a Coldwell Banker, internet leads sort of division, I’m sure gave you a lot of insight on how internet leads work. Can you tell us just a few best practices for anyone out there who may be purchasing leads through Zillow or Trulia? Or realtor.com? Or, you know, or just generating their own internet leads? Any just quick advice? Obviously, aside from your call them within 10 seconds, we know that what is there anything else that you found was that was really helpful?

Jonathan Darin 12:13
I think the biggest thing is so yeah, I mean, calling within the first five minutes, right, or, you know, while they’re still on their handheld device was obviously a big one. I think the biggest thing, though, is still follow up. But it’s not just about that call you make within five minutes, because I got to see this over a two year span. And you’d be surprised the number of people that came in right when I started, that didn’t close until I was almost handing it off to the person that took over the division. Wow. You know, so I think it’s just, you have to be patient with it. You know, a lot of people are like, Oh, well, they weren’t good, because they don’t want to buy right now you got to remember that your, if you are paying for a zillo or paying for leads somewhere that those people aren’t necessarily looking to go right now, yes, there are a few that are and you’re gonna want to continue to follow up with them to but it’s just, it’s more that nurture process, you know, you need to put them into a CRM, if you have a CRM, you need to kind of continue to follow up with them not be overwhelming with the follow up. But just kind of be in front of them still just the same way you would do with hopefully your sphere. So

D.J. Paris 13:23
yeah, I have a color or a story that I used to work for an IT firm for many years that generated internet leads for people looking to buy health insurance people that you know, had to buy their own coverage. And we were generating at the time is pretty big company, or growing company with 15,000 leads a day. And we’re selling out to 1000s of health insurance agents all over the country. And so we had all this data over many years of and we were able to track some of the activity that the health insurance agents provided to us about how often they called and you know, and sort of how quickly these transactions happen. What we found, I mean, this is such a silly example. But it really points to what you mentioned was that in the leads we generated, it took on average for somebody to buy a major medical health insurance plan 11 days to make a decision. So if I was Blue Cross or Aetna, Humana or whatever, it took them about 11 days to go, okay, that’s the plan. But we found that with the internet leads, we were selling that most of the health insurance agents because some would call and say, Oh, the leads don’t work. And then others would call and say these are the greatest things ever. So we knew that the leads worked because some people had a lot of success for them. What we found was, on average, that person didn’t make that decision till day 11. But the vast majority of the people that bought the leads stopped calling after like day three, day three or day four, they just were like, okay, the person’s not interested. And they didn’t nurture the lead. And I mean, that’s a much shorter sales cycle, of course than purchasing or selling a home. But it’s the same principle of you know, you don’t know when this person is going to make a decision. So and it really doesn’t matter. Just apply to internet leads, of course, it applies to every one of your sphere of influence or people you meet. So today is are you guys predominantly working through sphere of influence? Or how do you generate clients? I’ve obviously a lot of referrals, I’m sure.

Jonathan Darin 15:15
Yeah. So I mean, that is the that is our main bread and butter is, is, um, a big sphere? Yeah. I’m a big, you know, taking care of your past clients. That is, I mean, we sit down every year at the end of the year and say, Okay, where are we? Where are we getting the majority of our business? You know, where do we want to spend marketing dollars and things like that? And to be honest with you, it’s yeah, you know, you still have to spend marketing dollars, you could you could pay for leads here and there. But it’s all based on taking care of your past clients and your sphere of influence for us. I mean, I know that not everybody can say that. But we happen to have a big sphere, we’re all pretty locally based within a couple areas. You know, obviously that coverage goes way out, but at least you know, kind of for that sphere from family, friends past clients, that kind of stays pretty close. So that is that’s our main business. I mean, to be honest with you, we don’t we don’t spend a ton of money on, you know, Zillow, or those sites. We’re focusing on I’d rather spend money on, you know, client appreciation events and things like that to where they’re out in front of and we can see them again. That’s, that goes a long ways. I feel. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 16:34
think I think you’re right. And I know you’re right. Because of course, it’s working for you and everyone else I’ve ever talked to who has the same the same exact thought. What, what do you So you mentioned client appreciation events? Are there other things you do? Or even if it’s only client appreciation events, which is an awesome thing? What are you doing after the sale, the sale to stay in touch? Are there certain processes you guys employ to make sure that, you know, you stay in front of your clients, back your clients minds, maybe?

Jonathan Darin 17:05
Yeah, I’ll give you a little rundown of like our process of what we do. So we are going to have, they’re instantly going to go into a CRM for us, and they’re gonna get a 30 day and a 90 day from us, which we can put a purchase personal touch on, we’ll get an alert to send them, you know, just to check in hay 30 days after the sale, because or if they’re a buyer, they’re probably still trying to unpack, you know, depending on their situation. And then, you know, 90 days out, we’re going to be you know, Hey, did you finally get settled? And, in some of them, no, some of them. Yeah, we’ve been settled in since you know, the first day, we had the U haul with us at the closing. So we do that for sure. But we also take time to, you know, depending on the client, send a quick test text message here, there’s follow up with a phone call, follow up with an email, you know, we have a marketing program that we use, that helps us stay in front. But if we continue to do our client events to that’s just another touch. You know, we invite all of our clients, you know, to our client appreciation events and things like that we’ve done, you know, dog adoption, dog adoption events, we’ve done toy drives around Christmas time. We just did actually our first big kind of blow out client appreciation was all of our past clients. We did a White Sox game, we did a tailgate and did like bleacher seats for everybody. So we took up like two full sections of the outfield. It was it was really cool to get everybody together. But it kind of felt like a wedding. To be honest with the DJ, I had to go around to like everybody, and I was like, exhausted. Enjoy the game. Like barely had a hot dog.

D.J. Paris 18:49
Well, yeah, the host never eats, even if it’s a hosting party at your own house, you’d already because Yeah,

Jonathan Darin 18:56
exactly. But it was a blast. It was an absolute blast. And people are still talking about it. You know, and that was in I believe it was, I can’t remember the exact date I think was the end of July. So I mean, that’s pretty good. Now we’re gonna be rolling up on, you know, five, six months later, and people talk about it or clients that were that we had that maybe weren’t closed with us yet or saying, Hey, you’re going to be doing that again next year.

D.J. Paris 19:20
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m a huge fan of those. I think brokers oftentimes forget how, how helpful those are in just keeping the relationship going strong, and also just a nice thing to do for people who have made you some money. So yeah,

Jonathan Darin 19:36
it doesn’t have to be as big as that either. Like that. We started small, you know, just doing small things. Don’t be afraid that if there’s only a few people, because hey, guess what, at least you had a few people, you know, so we were lucky the White Sox thing turned out pretty good.

D.J. Paris 19:50
That’s awesome. Let’s talk about an award that you won. That’s, I think a very, very big deal. Considering Coldwell Banker is certainly one of the largest if not, I don’t maybe they’re the large In the United States, but certainly one of them, you won the 2017 30, under 30. So tell us a little bit about

Jonathan Darin 20:08
oh my god amazing experience. Probably actually one of the top moments in my career to be honest with you, DJ, you know, it’s something that you have to apply for, you have to, and you can’t just like write a couple sentences and say, Hey, I qualify, like it goes into like your numbers, your community involvement, you kind of have to give an outlook of I actually submitted a video for mine of kind of like what we’re doing kind of hitting some of those main points of kind of the future, right. So you know, under 30, you know, any realtors out there that are under the age of 30 are kind of the future of the brand of the realtor brand, just in general. So Coble banker started this, this 30, under 30 award, it allowed us all to get together in Vegas, as well, at the National coal banker convention that they do. It’s called Gen blue. So we were there, I got to meet 29 Awesome. You know, other realtors throughout the world, actually, there was a few from Canada, there was one from Turkey, and then just all spread out throughout the United States. It was, it was a really, really cool experience. And now I take away from that, you know, kind of friends for life when it when it came to that. I mean, we all won the award the same year, I have, you know, built in referral, I guess worldwide, I guess if you if anyone’s moved to Turkey, you know, or Canada, I, you know, I have connections in those areas now as well, which is, which is really cool. Really cool.

D.J. Paris 21:42
Ya know, it’s a really big deal. And so with respect to your team, do you have a role to continue to expand the team? Are you happy with the size of the number of your five brokers now? Are you looking to grow? Beyond those five or sort of what what are your thoughts with the with the team?

Jonathan Darin 22:01
That’s a great question. So I think that’s kind of ever changing kind of depending on how you know how we are doing. Right now I’m very comfortable what we have, we just added Matt, like I said to the, to kind of cover a little bit of the city for us. So I’m really happy with that. And that actually kind of that that actually kind of came out of left field, but it ends up it’s going to be a perfect scenario for us. So it’s more of like, grow as needed base is rather than like I have a goal to grow this to 20 agents by 2020. Like, I don’t I mean, at that point, I might as well manage an office or something. But I think one thing that’s really unique about us DJ is all of my agents are full service. So what I mean by that is everybody on my team, so all five of us are full service, meaning we can do any part of the transaction, I don’t just have just buyer’s agents or showing agents or admin, when you join my team, it’s your full fledge, you’re gonna do the whole process, you’re gonna learn from start to finish on a listing presentation on listings, I just feel like that kind of cuts out all the gaps. You know, I know that other people will say they like doing teams the other way. But this is what’s works for us is that there’s no gaps in the transaction. So that Mr. And Mrs. Buyer, you know, when they go to list their house in a couple of years, the same team member can still do it, or vice versa. Now, if I’m just a list very,

D.J. Paris 23:35
I mean, to interject, fine. It’s a very interesting thought, because there are teams I’ve interviewed who, like you said, would say no, no, you really want a listing specialist. And then you want a negotiation person and you and they carve out these unique roles, which in theory is kind of a cool idea. But you’re right, because if someone’s sphere, if your sister’s sphere is maybe different from yours, let’s say and their best friend wants her to list the home, but she’s the really works with only buyers, then you’re right, like then it could create some issues.

Jonathan Darin 24:09
Exactly. And that’s we tried to I want to do eliminate that aspect of it. Now we’ll still go on listing appointments as teams, you know, the two of us are, you know, some of us some, some people when they have us out, they’re like, hey, like, I want your whole team shirt place. Hey, we can, I’m not sure we’ll be able to get all five of us there. But if Hey, can I get you know, two or three of us there? And that’s, you know, usually more than enough and fine, but, you know, it’s just it kind of, like you said, cuts out that gap. Whereas if, if I was the only listing agent, well what happens what they really, you know, have a connection with me and they want me to help them with the FBI. Well, I can do that too. And same goes with any of the team members.

D.J. Paris 24:49
That’s yeah, I think that’s really smart. And again, if you’re working by sphere of influence, you know, you’re it’s not the easiest thing for one of your team members who may be wouldn’t be The listing broker to go, Hey, my best friend wants to list but I don’t really do that for the team. Can you do that for me? You’re right. It’s it also, it’s good that you can just jump in and help out at any part of the transaction. Any member can can if someone needs help, because everyone knows everything. So I think that’s, it’s smart.

Jonathan Darin 25:18
It works out perfect that way, because and we all have, you know, we keep notes and have, you know, iPads and stuff like that, where we’re able to send notes to one another. So if it’s like, Oh, my goodness, I you know, I’m double booked today, I need you to take out you know, Suzie Q, that team member can step right. And everyone’s aware of it. All of our clients are aware of it right away that hey, it may not be Jonathan Darren every time you might get, you know, Patrick Mayer or John bend a sec that meets you that day, but know that they’re going to be up to date on the situation. Awesome.

D.J. Paris 25:49
Well, now I have some questions. Since you’re, you know, I’ve been in seven years, but we’ll still call you new ish, even though you’re not or youngest, for sure. But what advice do you have, we have a lot of brokers that listen, who are well, they’re not necessarily new to the business, although we do have a lot of new newer brokers, but people who are just looking to increase production, I always love to ask this question for, you know, brokers that are doing well, in particular brokers who are on the, you know, on the early stages of their career, like like yourself, what would you advice would you give to brokers, either brand new, or just looking to do better?

Jonathan Darin 26:25
Um, yeah, so I mean, that’s, that’s a good question. And we, I’m gonna kind of hit on it, I’m a little bit old school, when it comes to this, it’s just, I really think you need to get a hold of and stay in contact with your past clients and your sphere. And I think nowadays, it’s so easy to be able to refer crossed country, with a lot of millennials and younger people in the business, that may have friends that are, hey, I’m going to Colorado or I’m going to Texas or I’m going there, it’s so easy to refer nowadays, that I think you need to hit that niche as well. You know, if you can get one or two, you know, referral checks a month, or even one or two a year, that can go a long way. And you can throw that towards marketing or giving back to again, your your sphere, I just have a hard time having newer agents going out and buying a bunch of leads when we talked about that might take that might take 18 months. And

D.J. Paris 27:27
you know, if a lead is shared with other brokers, if it’s not only being sold, just to that broker, which some lead services sell to, and some of them are exclusive, some aren’t. But like you’re going up against somebody who might be have 20 years experience, that’s not an easy thing to overcome. If you’re brand new to the business, it’s tough.

Jonathan Darin 27:47
Exactly. And people are views and all that is, is very important nowadays. So you know, if you’re newer in the business, and you only have a couple reviews to your name, and it’s your mom and your, you know, your aunt, you know, that’s, you got to be able to get get past that, though. improve yourself, and what better way to do it then help people that you know, or that people, you know, know. So that’s what we try to do is we try to go, here’s another thing, I think this is just a tip for everybody out there is or something that we do, and I kind of instill in my team is we treat everybody as like they’re our only client. We treat them like I don’t know, not royalty, but we treat them as like, hey, we want them to enjoy this so much that they can’t stop talking about as to, you know, when somebody says hey, I’m going to be looking to sell sooner I’m going to be looking to buy, we want them to easily say call the Jonathan Darren team, they were all over it, you know, they made it as stress free as possible, which we know this is a very stressful time for people. But they made it as stress free as possible. Like that’s what we want. We want that.

D.J. Paris 28:54
Yeah, that’s makes makes a ton of sense. It’s interesting. Zillow just came out with their 2018. They call it the consumer housing Trends report. And I think they do it every year. They this is just a few weeks ago. So it’s like the big huge study. And this was an interesting number that shout out at me, that speaks a lot to when you were talking a few moments ago about sphere of influence how critical it is 46% This is nationwide, of course, not Chicago. But 46% of all homebuyers are first timers. And so which is probably no surprise to anyone, but it’s a good reminder that like about half of everyone buying a house has never worked with a realtor before. But the vast majority of those those consumers unless they may be moved to a new area of the country where they don’t know anybody. The vast majority are gonna go Who do we know who’s a realtor? And then or they’re gonna ask their friends who did you use? Did they do a good job? And I mean, that’s literally almost one out of every two. So this fear, staying into apps and taking great care of your clients so that they refer you to other people is critical, but like just remembering that the vast majority And probably most of those people were renters before then. So that’s another opportunity working with renters in, you know, in the immediate term, and then conditioning them into maybe becoming a buyer down the road. Well, they’re going to become a buyer likely anyway, they might as well use you. Yeah,

Jonathan Darin 30:17
exactly. Exactly. And I think too, it’s big to take and just a mental note here would be as like, we, we try to take the sales person out of it. Yes, we’re providing a service like a full fledged service, right? I’m not gonna force anybody to buy a house because I need a paycheck. I’m not I’m not a salesperson. So they’re going to pick the place that they want, but we’re going to help them through that process and service them the best that we possibly can. And I think if you can, you know, service your sphere, they’re gonna help. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 30:51
I mean, we all really dislike salespeople, just in general. But we love service people. We love being service we hate being sold. And I think all of the, essentially everyone I’ve ever interviewed, who, again, all people I interview are like yourself are in the very top of production. They all see it that way. And it’s not something they say, although I mean, it’s not something they just say, of course, they do say it, but it’s actually the exact way they project themselves. And it’s like, well, of course they of course they are because that’s why they’re so successful. And they’re patient and all of the other things you need to be to be a successful real estate broker. But yeah, it’s clear, it’s clear that you and your team are doing that. So congratulations. Net to wrap up if there are buyers, sellers, renters anywhere in the Chicagoland area, they are not limited just to the suburbs. Although they work there they work the city, the generic team works everywhere. What is the best way that a buyer seller or renter investor can get in touch with you guys.

Jonathan Darin 31:57
The best way would be to probably visit our website, which I believe you gave out earlier, it’s homes by and that’s B YJD t like Jonathan Darren team.com. Or you can call our team line one of our team members will have that at all times. It’s 7083081. Also,

D.J. Paris 32:20
by the way, I mentioned this earlier, but if and when people who are listening maybe who are also brokers, you should check out the homes by JDT website simply to get an idea of what I think a really clean, effective real estate website, it looks like. Not all of them are built equally. And this one was built with a lot of intention. And it’s really clean and simple. It’s really exactly what I like in a website. So it’s very cool. And also they should follow you on Facebook. So it’s easy to find. If you just go into Facebook and type in Jonathan Darren, it’ll pop right up there, ns dar i n. Or you can just go directly with facebook.com forward slash J Darren team. And it’ll pop right there. And they you have a lot of fans on Facebook. So congratulations on building successful Facebook page as well. And, and you get to do videos and things. Cool. Well, thank you, Jonathan so much. I really appreciate you and on behalf of your team coming on to the show and spending some time with us and giving back to the community. I know that’s important to you. So we really couldn’t appreciate it more. So on behalf of the Jonathan Darren team and Jonathan, Darren and myself, thanks for listening, and we will see you on the next episode. Thanks, John.

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Melanie Stone is a top 1% producer in Chicago and her business isn’t even four years old! She’s the author of the popular So You Want To Buy A Condo seminar that she hosts every few weeks at various locations throughout Chicago. She also has been named one of REALTOR ® Magazine’s 30 Under 30 and has an impressive social presence (including the hashtag #MSC). She writes a blog post about each of her clients after the transaction closes, and on this podcast episode shares additional strategies that distinguishes her from the thousands of brokers in Chicago!

Melanie Stone can be reached at melanie.stone@cbexchange.com and 630.536.7723.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Paris, I am your host and we have crossed over the 70 episode. I don’t know line now that that really is aligned, but we’re very excited because, you know, our listenership, again keeps going up. So thank you for listening. Thank you for telling a friend. And please continue to keep doing that. Keep listening and keep sending this to other realtors that you think could benefit from hearing interviews with top 1% producers today, we have Melanie stone, we’ll get to in just a minute I have two things I’d like to talk about before we hit the the interview number one, Zillow was kind enough to bring me out to New York a couple of weeks ago and I got to go to their New York offices and see their operation and meet a lot of their staff. And that was really super cool and exciting. And if there are any managing brokers listening, Zillow has a program called premier broker where you can provide leads to your brokers and the back end, to be able to control all of that is incredible. And it’s really an amazing way to separate your brokerage firm from the hundreds, if not 1000s of others in Chicago to be able to actually provide Zillow leads, which number one are a lot more affordable than I had ever thought. And every you know, we know that almost every single person who goes online to look for a home is visiting Zillow in some part of the transaction, they have 186 million unique visitors every single month, right? There’s just no, no way around it. And these leads that they that they provide are amazing for one, really one big reason that separates them from the others, which is their live transfer leads, which means that Zillow gets on the phone and talks to these consumers qualifies them and then passes it over in real time, right to your broker’s phone. So you can set up a number of brokers that all rings their phone simultaneously based on zip codes and things like that anyway, so I don’t want to talk too much about it, but it’s something that you absolutely should look into to again, give yourself a competitive advantage at recruiting or retaining your brokers and also just generating more income right. So if you’re interested in learning more about Zillow premier broker, call Evan at 828-446-6885 or email Evan e vi n, the letter L at Zillow group.com Evan L at Zillow group.com. I’d also like to mention there is an organization that you should be aware of if you’re not already called Real Estate to the rescue. This is a volunteer organization run by real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area to help homeless animals. And if you haven’t learned about them, you can by going to real estate to the rescue.com they have a big event at the Merchandise Mart coming up later this October. And or you can always join the organization right on their website and volunteer as well. I’ve been to their events, they’re fantastic. And if you are an animal lover, you should check it out. So once again, go to real estate to the rescue.com and volunteer some time or some money and go see what they’re all about. And now on to our interview with Melanie stone.

Okay, today on the show, we have Melanie stone. Melanie stone is a REALTOR with Coldwell Banker and the girl behind Melanie stone Chicago or hashtag MSC. Her business is built around first time homebuyers in 2015. She curated and launched so you want to buy a condo since then she’s taught this course across the city at places like Uber GrubHub and we work in 2017 Melanie was named to realtor magazine’s 30 under 30 list. She has also is become a member of our company’s prestigious President’s Club in 2018. In 2015, she was named Coldwell Banker city region’s Rookie of the Year. She currently ranks in the top 1% of all brokers in the Chicagoland area. When she is not thinking real estate Melanie writes for her blog and drinks coffee and unwinds and are cozy Linkin Park home. And if you would like to follow Meghan, Melanie, definitely check out her website. I was just telling her offline, it’s maybe the best looking website I’ve ever seen for realtor, which is Melanie stone chicago.com also follow her on Instagram at Melanie stone ch AI. So Melanie, welcome to the show.

Melanie Stone 4:52
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.

D.J. Paris 4:55
We are excited to it. I was I was telling Melanie right before we started and I put this on Facebook as well like sheep outside of, you know, sort of the the people that have been like the top top top producers for the past 20 years. Melanie is the most requested person. I think seven or eight people have requested her specifically to be on the show. And in fact, just yesterday, somebody reached out to me after we had already booked you and said, Hey, you guys should have Melanie stone on the show. And I said, Well, we just booked her like an hour ago. So this is a real treat for us. And we’re very excited to have you so welcome.

Melanie Stone 5:27
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I hope I live up to these people’s expectations. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 5:32
you just have to be perfect. So just be get give a perfect interview and just say all the right things. Anyway, let’s talk. Let’s talk about how you got into real estate, because you got in at a pretty young age. So tell us that story.

Melanie Stone 5:46
Yeah, for sure. So I was a senior, an incoming senior at DePaul University. And I was studying journalism. And I’ve basically been obsessed with like writing and journalism and blogging since I was really young. Like I had a blog since I was maybe 13, or something like that. And my whole life, I had these dreams of moving to New York and becoming a magazine writer, or maybe staying in Chicago and working for the Chicago Tribune or something like that. And that was really, really what I wanted in life. So as a college student that summer between your junior and senior year is super important for internships. And I just knew that if I wanted to succeed in that industry, then I needed an amazing one for that in between summer. So I applied for only one, which was probably my downfall. But I thought I had it. I put all my eggs in that one internship basket, and it was in New York City for the summer at Huffington Post, which at the time, was like my dream company. And it’s funny because now I don’t think I’ve looked at health posts website. And so So, so long, I don’t even know if it still exists. But back then that was all I wanted was that summer job at HuffPo. So anyway, so at the last second I like got through all the interview stuff, and I thought I had it and then they ended up saying, Hey, we’re so sorry. You know, call us next summer, I actually don’t think it’s gonna work out for you this summer here. And I was devastated. I cried. For days, I felt like such a failure. And in kind of like a bout of immaturity, I basically just decided to quit journalism, and do something else for the summer. So it was really like a foolish response to like a normal life event, aka like not getting what you want, or not getting the job you want. And the way I responded was by just straight up quitting the field that I had been pursuing for many, many years. So it was kind of silly. But anyways, what ended up happening was, I took a couple weeks off, and I was like, What do I want to do in life? I don’t know. I considered like waitressing or getting a job like that. And I really just had no leads didn’t know what the heck to do with myself. And I remember going to Chipotle with my dad for dinner one night, and we were sitting across from each other. And he was just like, You know what, like, why don’t you try real estate? You know, I think you like houses a little bit, right? Like you you like people, at least a little bit, I think you could make it work. And he he’s a like an entrepreneurial guy. He’s run businesses for his entire life. So he’s just very into the whole, like, work for yourself mentality. And so he was really, really just kind of pushing the idea. So he’s not a real term. My mom’s not a realtor. But they definitely moved us around a lot when we were young to different houses in Hinsdale where I’m from. So from that, both my mom and my dad kind of developed a love for home and you know, interiors and stuff like that. So that’s kind of where the idea came from, to get into real estate. So it was really random shot in the dark. Basically, just going off a suggestion from my dad over burrito bowls, which is kind of funny now, but

D.J. Paris 9:08
so you got your license at 21. Is that Is that right? Or right around? 21? No, so

Melanie Stone 9:13
I wasn’t 21 Yet, I was still 20 Because this was like, couple months before my birthday over that summer. And you have to be 21 to I think, take the test or start the class or something like that. So in the meantime, before I turned 21 I went and started calling managing brokers and I called Andy Shep PARSKY, who at the time was managing the Coldwell Banker Goldcoast office and he brought me in, sat down with him and it was like an instant connection. I felt so comfortable. I felt so safe. I felt really accepted and encouraged talking to him. And he was a Christian as well. So we really connected on a lot of levels. And he said, You know, I think you’d be great at this. In the meantime while you’re studying for your tests. Like I’ll connect you with a with a bro broker that needs help. So he ended up connecting me with Hunter Andre, who was also at that office at the time. And Hunter. Hunter is a top producer, new construction luxury. He’s an amazing agent. And he really just took me under his wing. And honestly, everything I know about real estate, for the most part came from Hunter, so I owe him so much. And I still call him to this day, like whenever I need something. But in those first couple months, I started working as his assistant in the office. And then I will also come out with him on showings or inspections or whatever he wanted me to tag along for. And it was just in those moments when we’d be driving in the car. And he’d just be telling me this or telling me that crazy story about different clients or situations or whatnot, that I really like soaked in as much real estate knowledge as I could. So I loved working for Ontario, it was just very educational. And it was a blast, honestly. But anyways, so then once I turned 21 I spent a couple of weeks studying for the test and then took it at like that end of September. I think I took it the last day of September in 2014. And I was the only one in the room. I started like bawling crying during the tests because I was so anxious about passing it sure came out and then they said okay, you pass Good job. And I was like overjoyed. And then basically a couple days later sat down with Hunter and was like I loved working for you. But I don’t want to be on your team. I want to do my own thing. And he was like, okay, and everybody else was kind of like okay, you know, do whatever you want to do. But you know, it’s it’s a big risk to try to go out on your own. Sure, but I was like, I don’t know. I was probably crazy. I don’t know why I just, I probably should have stayed with hunter. I don’t know. But um, yeah, that’s what I ended up doing. And so I was in college that first year, I was a senior at DePaul. So I was taking classes at night and taking classes online. And then during the day, I was basically hustling my butt off trying to build a real estate business. Wow.

D.J. Paris 12:11
Well, let’s talk about doing that while in college because it seems very difficult because you speaking of a gold, an ex Coldwell Banker, broker, Nikko apostle, we had him on the show, I’m sure you know, Nikko and he Yeah, he’s great. He was talking about when he first got his license, he was probably 20 to 21. And he goes, or maybe he’s 23. But anyway, he was like nobody was going to give me their million dollar home to sell. So he talked about doing a lot of open houses. He said he would do open houses for anybody just to get something going because he goes I had no leads I you know, tell us about your first year like what did you do to build business? Especially being still in college? Did you work? Did you do a lot of rentals because your friends were still in college and renting? Did you go right into sales? Like Like, how did you? How’d you build that business?

Melanie Stone 13:01
That is a great question. So I first started doing an insane amount of rentals. And this was four years ago, and the rental game was very different back then it was like you could find something on Craigslist, or you kind of did have to use a realtor. Whereas now it’s like, there’s all these rental buildings, there’s PadMapper there’s all these different like online sites where you can go and find apartments and you don’t need a realtor anymore. So I really had the upper hand when I started. Because all of my friends were in college or like recently out of college, everyone was trying to move to Chicago. And it was just like, so much so much rental business all at once. So I really kept myself busy running around the city doing rentals, learning a lot learning how to drive clients around learning how to parallel park while holding a conversation with somebody sure, like learning all of the little ins and outs of the city and different streets and whatnot. So I did mostly rentals from about October until December. And then on Christmas Eve I remember a lender that I had been becoming friends with his name was Chris consola. He is still my number one go to forever lender. I really don’t refer anyone else business. I give it all to him. Sure. So I definitely am super super loyal to Chris but honestly him giving me my first buyer was a huge break for me. He like referred us or connected us over email on Christmas Eve and me and Brian that was the buyer. We had our phone call. And then I started working with Brian and Brian didn’t care that I was young. He just liked me and we got along and it was just an amazing first experience, I think in sales and he bought a little condo in Rogers Park and it was adorable and I just I loved being a part of that transaction. And after that, I was like, wow, I want to get more buyers. How do I do this?

D.J. Paris 15:08
So, so tell us, how did you do that?

Melanie Stone 15:13
Oh, gosh, well, I did everything that they tell you to do. And your first year I did open houses. I did, you know, build my database and send out emails, I would create little gifts and little pop by type things. And I would give them out to people. Oh, what else did I do? I did Facebook marketing I, I texted everyone I knew and I asked for for help. And for them to put my name out there and stuff like that. And also, again, in 2014 2015, Instagram was a big thing. But it wasn’t as big of a thing as it was now. So I was really like, trying to cultivate my brand as much as I could by posting pictures at open houses or posting pictures on showings and stuff like that. So I definitely like leaned into social media right from the get go. And that helped me a ton with getting the word out. But really, the biggest turning point for getting buyers was in the fall of 2015. Chris consola, the lender I was telling you about him and I sat down and we decided that we are going to do our own homebuyer presentation out there. And these existed, I knew. Yeah, I knew a lot of agents had done these. And you know, the first time buyer seminar was not a new concept in 2015. But I wanted to make it relevant for young people, I wanted to make it something that people would want to come to. So we created so you want to buy a condo, and we wrote the content for it. And we booked a bar one night and invited everyone we knew, and people came out and we did our homebuyer presentation, and it was probably the scariest night of my life. And I will never go back to that day, even if you paid me it was so frightening. But it really worked. And after that, we planted another one. And then we planted another one. And now we teach them once a month for the public, and a couple times a month at different companies in Chicago. And I really get a ton of business from them.

D.J. Paris 17:24
Yeah, I there’s such a great idea. And I will tell you. So my background prior to joining the firm I’m at is I was at a technology firm in River North. And so I worked there for many years. And it was 120 or so of us there. And I was one of the old guys at like 30, and everyone else was in their 20s. And so most people were renting, but they were starting to make money. And I think there is a good chunk of those people that would be condo purchasers probably in the next year or two. And I thought you know what a huge missed opportunity. And this is something where somebody like you would come in, and I thought, you know and do a presentation. And I What’s what’s I think brokers often don’t think about is I know, so we had an HR department at this company, and there was a head of HR. And I guarantee she would have been thrilled because would have made her look good to have somebody come in and say, Hey, I know you have a lot of people that are renting. So I can talk about that I can talk about people that are looking to transition and I’ll bring in lunch. And it’s one of those things that I bet you no one ever asked her to do that and there was such a huge opportunity. And so you’ve actually done this, you’ve gone to companies and done these presentations directly for their employees. Can you talk a little bit about how you built those relationships? Or is it as simple as asking your friends? Hey, where do you work? Can I talk to somebody who might be able to greenlight that?

Melanie Stone 18:50
It’s literally, of course yes. It’s great. Yeah, I just I, I don’t harass people. And you know, I’ll ask somebody once or twice, and then if it doesn’t work out, and I drop it, but I definitely lean on my connections so much for the seminars. So you know, what I’ll do is like, I’ll go on Facebook, and I look people up from high school, and I’ll see what office they’re at right now. And then I’ll send them a Facebook message. And I’ll be like, hey, you know, I would love to teach my seminar at your office. Do you think there’d be interest kind of thing. And then they’ll either write back and be like, yeah, shoot me an email, or they’ll say, hey, you know what, I talked to this person. We don’t really think it’s something that we do here, XYZ. So it’s really as simple as just asking people, but I do have a pretty big network just because I went to you a VI for a couple years. And then I went to DePaul for a couple of years and I went to, you know, grade school through high school in Hinsdale in the western suburbs. So because of that most of my network is working in Chicago, so that gives me a ton of different friends. To contact and ask about the seminars,

D.J. Paris 20:02
and also for all the brokers out there who are listening. And Emily talked about partnering with a lender who helps not only share costs, but also has, you know, the ability to send it out to their database to maybe possibly get some some people to show up. And also you can have other ancillary you know, professionals there, too, you could have a financial advisor, you could have an attorney, you could have a title company, I mean, there’s, there’s a number of people that could share the stage, and also the cost. And, you know, they’ll also have the ability to potentially market the seminar, too. So it’s such a smart idea. But I think what you’ve done so well is not just done at once you’re consistent, you’re constantly giving the seminar, which I’m sure is huge, because people oftentimes probably can’t attend until maybe the sixth one comes around, and they’re finally free. I’m sure that happens all the time.

Melanie Stone 20:53
Yeah, totally, totally. And I never thought if you asked me that first time, the first thing we did the seminar, like, I never thought we would be doing it as often as we do now. And I’ve really grown a lot as a person through it, cuz I hate public speaking, I get so embarrassed and anxious and self conscious. And I just, it was, I think my biggest fear in life was standing in front of a room and having to talk. And now not to say it’s easy, I still have a lot of fear right before I go up there. But it has gotten so much better. And I just really has shaped me as a person.

D.J. Paris 21:35
And I’m curious outside of referrals, because at this point, I am sure you work a lot of your businesses, referrals from previous customers, but outside of that, what percentage of your clientele that is not referrals comes from these seminars.

Melanie Stone 21:50
I don’t track it, but at least 50% Probably more.

D.J. Paris 21:56
Unbelievable. Like, that’s a lot. Yeah, that’s amazing. So it’s, it’s yeah, the trick I think with all of it, is consistency. Everybody can do it once, but to do it constantly and have a whole rhythm. And, you know, it’s so smart. And again, I think the big opportunity is getting in front of employers who will have you come in around lunchtime, and just give a little presentation, there’s, there’s so much opportunity. So all you have to ever do is ask all your friends, hey, where do you work? Hey, can I talk to the person in charge of HR or whatever? There’s so much it’s so congrats to you, that is really cool. The other thing I really want to make a big, big deal about because I’ve literally never seen anybody do this. I was telling Melanie offline and as somebody who Melody’s been a writer for a long, long time part a good part of her life, she’s already been she’s been publishing online. So this is not new for her. But I’ve yet to see anyone else do this, everyone should go visit her website for a couple of reasons. One, it’s absolutely gorgeous. And it’s it’s got a really nice design to it, which is a Melanie stone chicago.com. But also, the one thing she did that I think is particularly brilliant from a marketing, I’m a marketer. So from a marketing perspective, I want to talk about it. But it’s also just really cool thing to do. She writes a blog post for every single one of her clients after the close. And she tells the story of how she met the person, the process of finding the home or selling the home. And then she has pictures of the happy person or couple or family in the blog post. And then I’m sure she publishes that all over social media. And I’m sure tags people in them, assuming they want to be tagged. And then that also is an amazing marketing opportunity. Aside from being a really cool thing to do and nice. I am sure that, you know, generates a lot of goodwill as well, because she is now then those people are then promoting a link they probably never been written about before in a blog post. So that’s particularly cool. So do I have that right? Or do I have some of that wrong or

Melanie Stone 23:55
No, no, you’re totally spot on. I love doing that. And I really, genuinely do enjoy almost every single person that I get to work with. And I say almost because I you know, you don’t get along with everybody out there. But for the most part, I become friends with, you know, a good majority of my clients. So to be able to write about them like that. I mean, it is honest, and I want to tell their story. So it’s definitely, it’s not like it’s 100% a marketing ploy or anything like that. To you know, to what you’re saying like, you’re right, it is so fun for me to then be able to share that. And then people, they read those posts and they say, oh my gosh, this girl’s 27 and she works at a marketing company like I’m 27 I work in a marketing marketing company. I could buy a condo, she can buy a condo, so it kind of like it puts the idea in other people’s heads and they’re like, oh, wow, if that person can do it then so can I.

D.J. Paris 24:55
Yeah, and I want to make a point that it is 100% sort of sincere are no warm and her voice your voice comes through in these blog posts where it is absolutely not a marketing, you know sort of tactic, it just happens to probably generate a lot of, you know, goodwill in business sort of just by default of being genuine, because your voice really comes through is like you are excited to tell the story. And I’ve always heard if you have to ask for the sale, or if you have to ask for referrals, you’re probably doing it wrong. So this is a good way to generate a lot of value and just tell people, Hey, I’m going to tell your story. And again, I’ve yet to see anyone do it. And it’s so smart. Because I always I always say like, and this is just my little personal Bugaboo is like what Realtors often do with social media, or at least sometimes what they only will do is like, Hey, I got a listing, check it out. I’m like, most people probably don’t care that much. Unless they’re in the market, they probably don’t care that you got a listing. But hey, I just wrote the story about one of my clients, you should check it out. That’s pretty cool. That’s worth checking out. So I always say like, provide additional value. And that I think really hits the hits the check marks there for that. So check out her website. It is it is super cool. But I want to also ask you, because speaking of marketing, because I loved seeing this, I couldn’t believe that this happened. You got booted off a dating website for marketing reasons. So could you could you tell us that story or dating app rather?

Melanie Stone 26:19
Yeah, yeah. So this is great. That was the first year when I was kind of trying everything just looking for business in any way. And I joined Tinder and my whole Tinder profile I decked out to be like, professional pictures of me or like pictures of homes. And then my bio said swipe right. Or I think swipe right means yes. So it’s like swipe right. If you’re looking to buy or sell in Chicago, I’m your girl would love to talk to you, blah, blah, blah. And I would just go in and click Yes to everybody. So I was getting all these matches and people saying like your new windows related to housing or whatever. But eventually, Tinder headquarters caught up with me and I probably got reported too many times. And they banned me from from Tinder and I was like, Haha, it was funny back then. But then I decided that I genuinely did want to start dating and taking dating seriously. So I tried to rejoin Tinder later, and they wouldn’t let him in. And I had to send them a pleading email, like saying look like I’m ready to look for love this time. Like, I’m not gonna market anymore, blah, blah, blah, and they roll back. And they’re like, sorry, like, you missed your chance.

D.J. Paris 27:31
You have soiled the good, the good name of Tinder, which is by the lake. Already, it doesn’t have to. It’s like that’s like, it’s like getting kicked out of a strip club. Like that would be the worst part. If you get kicked out of the strip club. You know, it’s, it’s a bet you’re in a bad place. But that’s, that’s really funny. And then But then you ended up meeting your fiancee on a different app. So it all ended? Well,

Melanie Stone 27:54
it did. I met my fiancee on hinge. So thank you hinge for letting me on.

D.J. Paris 28:00
That’s really funny. Um, so I want it let’s talk about sort of what what you think has made you successful? And maybe what separates you from other other brokers are things you think you do differently? Can you are you able to sort of verbalize that?

Melanie Stone 28:17
I’m sort of I mean, I mean, not not that I don’t believe in myself, but I do everything that other brokers do I communicate, I’m honest. You know, I’m very much myself with my clients. So in a lot of ways, I don’t think I’m super different from a lot of other brokers in that regard. But, I mean, my secret sauce, I think is totally my faith. I mean, like, Jesus is the backbone of everything I do, whether it’s social media related, blogging, related working with a client, teaching a seminar, like that’s where I get all of my motivation and my hope from and it just kind of is so integrated with every aspect of my business that it’s like impossible for me to talk about MSC without talking about my faith. So I don’t know if that’s really the answer that you’re looking for. But I would say that’s what makes me different. And not to say, I’m the only Christian Realtor out there. I know I’m not but it definitely helps guide my business in every single way.

D.J. Paris 29:26
Yeah, and you’re and you’re a you’re just a hard worker, too. And of course everyone in the top 1% is obviously they wouldn’t be there. It’s not by accident. But you know, you just keep puts you sort of put your head down and keep grinding. I mean, the idea of doing a seminar you say you do the monthly or so.

Melanie Stone 29:46
I do the seminar for the public once a month that we work where I have an office and then every couple of weeks basically whenever we can get into a company we go in so it might be like two company seminar. was a month in one public one, or it could be one company a month in one public one. It kind of varies.

D.J. Paris 30:06
Yeah. And again, it’s just just continually hitting. It’s funny I was interviewing, I probably told the story on a fact. I know I’ve told it, but I’ll tell it again very quickly. I was interviewing for the podcast and you should listen to this. Everyone should listen this episode, if you haven’t already. It was Josh Weinberg of the Weinberg Choi group. And I was asking Josh and I think this made it onto the podcast if it didn’t know, I’ll repeat it here. But he I asked him what his goals were, what his team’s goals were like, financially. Do you have financial goals? And he goes, Yeah, we don’t really think like that. He said, But if Tom, what if Tommy, who, by the way should congratulate he’s now going to be the president of car next year, which is very, very cool. Yeah, go Tommy. And, but anyway, they said of Tommy meets 365 people, which is his goal, we will hit all of our financial goals. So they have this grinding mentality to which is like, you know, God knows how long they’ve been in the business. 10 years plus, and they still go, Yeah, every single day, he has to meet one new person he’s never met. And that feeds everything else. Right. And so for you, obviously, you’re getting 50% of your non referral business from the seminars. So you’re doing them all the time. And I think that is just such a smart way. You’re just constantly, you know, getting the next one booked, and very, very smart. So keep congratulations on obviously, doing all of that. What else? Is there any any advice you have for newer brokers, or brokers that are looking to increase production, anything you see that you feel that maybe brokers aren’t doing that they ought to be thinking about?

Melanie Stone 31:45
I mean, I definitely think being yourself in real life and online is really important. So for me, my brand is so consistent, whether I’m on Facebook, or Instagram or with somebody, I just, I try really hard to be as me as I can, if that makes sense. So like, if you go and look at my Instagram, it’s not a business, Instagram, it’s my personal account. But my personal account is my business, you know what I mean? So like, everything is on the same thing i’ll post about my personal life, I’ll post about MSC stuff I’ll post about literally anything like it’s just kind of all a hodgepodge of life and work and life and work and life and work. And I like it that way. And I don’t think I would ever want to separate myself were like, over here, I’m, you know, real estate, Melanie, and over here, I’m actual Melanie, you know, so I’m pretty like, I’m definitely a big advocate of making it all one as cohesive as possible. And then the second thing I would say is, my big tip for new brokers would be to rely on other people around them. So for me, I rely on my family and my friends and my fiance, I need these people they are. They’re really like the backbone of my business in a lot of ways. I have a newsletter that I send out once every couple, once every two months. And it’s a huge arduous project and involves printing and folding and labeling. And it’s just, it’s too much of a task to do on my own. So what I do is I have all my girlfriends over, and I get wine and snacks, and they come over and they sit on the floor. And they helped me put the newsletter together at night, like you know, once every couple of weeks. So I really, really, really would be nothing without the people in my life. And I would say new brokers should ask others for help and don’t think that you can do it all alone. Because if you try that, I think inevitably you’re burnout and just lose interest.

D.J. Paris 33:52
Yeah, I think that is really well said and I think you know, again, your voice and your personality comes through in your social media and also your website, which is I would say most people don’t do a great job of integrating anything outside of their business life into it. And I think that you’ve done that in a way that’s pretty unique. So everyone again, if you haven’t yet checked out her website, it’s Melanie stone chicago.com also follow her on Instagram, which is Melanie stone, CH AI and you can you know sort of see how she weaves both her personal and professional life together in a way that seems really authentic and genuine. And also not super salesy, which is again I think a delicate balance and something to like check out because you do it. You do it very well. And you’re also we should mention you’re working on I don’t know if you if you want to talk about it much but you’re working on a new seminar, obviously as a complement to the buyer seminar. We’re working on a seller one as well.

Melanie Stone 34:54
Yes, yes, I am. So I’ve been thinking about this and what to do. about it for a while, because I definitely I love buyers. But I also love sellers and being able to market someone’s home and tell the story of where they live is really, really fun for me. But a lot of people, they look at my social media and they’re like, Oh, she doesn’t work for it, she doesn’t work with sellers, because all I see is the kind of seminar so I’m not totally sure how it’s going to look yet. But it won’t be a seminar, it will be called. So you want to sell a condo, and I’m thinking it’ll be either an ebook or an actual book or something that people can get their hands on and learn all about the ins and outs of selling because for a first time buyer, they don’t know anything about first time selling. So I really, really want to fill that gap too. And I’m still trying to like iron out what exactly it will be but hopefully, somewhat consistent with so you want to buy a condo?

D.J. Paris 35:50
I do not think it should be a book if my opinion is worth anything. And it shouldn’t, it probably isn’t. But my suggestion, do it on video at all, like videos, like a series of videos. Well,

Melanie Stone 36:03
being just as much as I get nervous in front of crowds. I get nervous in front of video.

D.J. Paris 36:11
I do.

Melanie Stone 36:11
I definitely welcome that that input so much.

D.J. Paris 36:15
Only because I just know, you know, like, nobody reads anything. That’s the problem. If people read the exhibit, I guess if you write something really awesome, people may read it. But I always I like videos, just because I know but the attention span of the average person is pretty low. But But yeah, I mean either way, having this much putting material together for people to learn is so important. And I think oftentimes Realtors forget that that is that they know so much more than the average buyer seller who’s got their own professional life and career and doesn’t think about real estate 24/7. And they don’t know any of this stuff. So when they go to sell the property, really, they may have only bought a property once and then the now they’re selling it and they do not understand that process any more than you know. Anyone else really. So yeah, having that being that educator, I think is so important. And then they they’re with you forever. Once you you know, once you establish yourself as the knowledge source, so that’s really great. And Melanie’s obviously done a great job of that. So I think we covered it all. So once again, everyone should go visit Melanie stone chicago.com Follow her on Instagram, Melanie stone, shy she ch i. And also if there’s any buyers or sellers out there that want to work with you, what’s the best way they should reach out?

Melanie Stone 37:36
They can send me an Instagram DM, how about that?

D.J. Paris 37:39
Yes. And very few people use that feature. It is a cool feature. So visit her at Melanie’s shy and send her an Instagram direct message. Also, what’s the best way they can reach you and tell them

Melanie Stone 37:54
they can call me my number is 630-536-7723.

D.J. Paris 37:59
Or they can send you a message through your website as well. So again, Melanie, thank you so much for being on the show. I mean, again, remember, you’re only what four years in the business so far. Is that right? Four years five?

Melanie Stone 38:14
Yeah, literally my business turns for this month. So four years on the diet.

D.J. Paris 38:19
Yeah. And already a top 1% producer and 30 under 30. So keep up the great work and we’re so grateful you spent 30 minutes with us when I know you’re too busy to do that. So thank you. Thank you. And

Melanie Stone 38:31
no thank you. I appreciate the ask you so much.

D.J. Paris 38:35
You’re very welcome. And on behalf of Melanie and myself, we thank you for listening and we will see you on the next episode. Thanks Melanie.

Melanie Stone 38:44
Thanks DJ

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

After twenty years working as a consultant, Thomas Downing moved back to Chicago and started a new career in real estate. Without a sphere of influence or any leads handed to him, he produced over 12 million in his first year and earned Chicago Agent Magazine’s Rookie Of The Year award. Three years later he is a consistent top 1% producer and continues to build his business. In this interview Thomas explains why his customer-experience background helped prepare him for real estate and gives advice to brokers on what they could immediately implement to grow their practice.

Thomas Downing can be reached at 847.778.9952 and thomasdowning@atproperties.com.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:14
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcast made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris. I am your host, and we are very proud to celebrate. If I did my math right, and I may not have but I think this is our 75th episode. And we are so grateful and honored to continue to do the show people seem to keep listening. Our readership or listenership rather keeps going up. And that is we have no marketing really. So this is must be because people are passing it along to other brokers in their office, other realtors, they think could benefit from hearing from top producers sharing their strategies of success. So after looking back over 70 episodes, we’re honored to keep going forward. And we have a huge list of brokers that have reached out to us directly, or have suggested brokers to interview for future episodes. So please keep those suggestions coming. Although we can’t always immediately reply to everyone. So if you sent us one, we got it. And it’s in a list and we will eventually get to that person. So thank you for that. The other thing I want to mention is we are always looking for great questions. So maybe you have a question that you would love to ask a top producer, send those over to us and we will add them into our interviews, right this is for you. This is for you to learn from these these Mavericks what they’re doing to increase your own production and treat your clients more effectively effect sorry, efficiently, and of course effectively. So if you’re not already a subscriber, this is the first time listening or if you haven’t yet subscribed officially, you can find us on iTunes just search for keeping it real podcast, as well as Google Play. If you’re an Android user or any podcast app you might be using for your mobile device or tablet you should be able to find us you can also subscribe directly on our website which is keeping it real pod.com Please please please find us on Facebook which is also keeping it real pod and we push all of our episodes live there. By the way on our website, you can stream all of our episodes as well. So thank you for 70 episodes and on to our interview with Thomas Dalek.

Today on the show we have Thomas Downing. Thomas has clients deserve the highest levels of service and he’s honored to have received 100% client satisfaction rankings ratings rather, He’s ranked in the top 1% Also in the top of what matters most to his clients simply providing the best purchase terms. He is also proud to have won the 2016 agent Choice Award from Chicago agent magazine as from Chicago magazine rather as a as a North Shore native Thomas’s as an in depth market knowledge and insider’s perspective on the nuances of successfully buying and selling homes within each community. He was a former advertising executive and business management consultant. Thomas provides proven marketing and strategic expertise to his buyers and sellers. over 30 years of successful successful negotiation experience. Thomas delivers more value to his clients surpassing the industry standards with higher returns on his clients investments. By the way, you can check out Thomas at his website, which is Thomas downing do W N ing, Thomas downing.com. Thomas is that app properties and welcome to the show.

Thomas Downing 3:47
Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.

D.J. Paris 3:49
Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy day. I would we were just talking offline. And being that I know you’re Northshore native, but I know you hadn’t lived in Chicago for a long time before jumping into real estate can. Can you tell us that story of how you got involved in real estate?

Thomas Downing 4:05
Sure. Well, I kind of took the long way to get there. But I’ve always had a passion for real estate, whether it’s just buying my own homes and you know, fixing them up and then selling them later. Everywhere I’ve lived but in the 1980s I went to go work for Panem in New York City doing advertising and marketing for them. The last job I was working on their loyalty program, up until the end of Pan Am sure Yeah, and was there until about 1990. So then after Panem with the wit went the way it went, I went out to work for coding wells in San Francisco, which is a direct marketing agency and I worked mostly in high tech firms at the beginning of all that was taking place in the 1990s and really enjoyed it and I had an opportunity to really learn kind of an emerging industry, how to sell software and other products through the mail. It was very targeted marketing. It was a kind of a new industry when the internet started to really become big that data applied directly. And I got to do work on that as well. And then had the opportunity in the year 2000 and moved down to Texas and started a company called the turning point group with another partner. And as business management consultants, we work specifically on how do businesses align themselves with the best customer experience to keep people coming back into refer business. So it was kind of a very specific field. But it kind of built on everything that I had done before with direct marketing and advertising. So it was great. We got to work on Disney and AT and T and Time Warner Cable and several companies, and just how do you how do you build your brand? And even how your customers interact in a holistic way towards your customers so that they have an experience that keeps them coming back?

D.J. Paris 5:43
And then what then you did you eventually move from Texas, then back to Chicago?

Thomas Downing 5:48
I did at a short stint in Minneapolis. But you know, at that point, I had been traveling constantly between pan-am, you know, the ad agency and turning point crew up, I just, you know, I was done. I’ve got a million miles on United, the harder. Nothing fun, not fun places to do it. But when you are living

D.J. Paris 6:07
the you were kind of living the consultant life to some of this, you’re you’re going out to client sites and probably spending the week there and flying back that kind of thing.

Thomas Downing 6:16
Exactly. That’s exactly I was doing and I got a little tired of it after gosh, you know, almost 20 years of that type of life. I kind of came into real estate purposely. I was done with turning point grew up, I was done. You know just kind of with that lifestyle in general. And I knew I wanted something different. It’s something I always wanted to do. So it was not one of those things. I looked at like well, maybe I’ll try this out. You know, it was definitely a passion from the beginning. And you know, at the age of 50 started a new career and I’ve not looked back I absolutely love what I do.

D.J. Paris 6:49
Yeah, and we should say you are out in the northwestern suburbs. Do you focus specifically in that area in the North Shore? Are you kind of do work everywhere? You know, I’m just curious where you’re

Thomas Downing 6:59
my Office and Office out of Glenview and Winnetka. My license is hung in Glenview. I saw all over the North Shore and and some of the northwest suburbs as well, as well as North Chicago. I actually live in Andersonville. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So I kind of make that commute in reverse. But I’m passionate about the North Shore. I grew up there and I know the houses. And for some reason, it’s just a real passion to be in that area.

D.J. Paris 7:23
Wow. Well, we should talk about, you know, you are only in your third year, and you’re posed poised to do about 20 million, maybe more, which is an incredible accomplishment for anybody in their third year. You are now a top one percenter. And can you talk about sort of an in your first year winning this, you know, Agent Choice Award? Can you talk about what you did? And I we were talking offline about? You’ve listened to some other episodes we’ve done? And, you know, we would our listeners would love to know how to somebody get to that level, not only in their third year, but even in their first year?

Thomas Downing 7:59
Yeah, I think because I had been gone for so long, I did not have a sphere. And I know a lot of new agents, we get hammered that into our head, you know, contact your sphere of work your sphere. For me, you know, you had no sphere? It was really frustrating to hear it actually or to talk about CRM programs or whatever, right? Nobody? Yeah. So for me, I treated it like I treated my other businesses. I worked, you know, I still work very hard. But it is a passion, and you have to make it part of your lifestyle. So like some of your other guests that I’ve heard speak as well as other people I’ve heard speak. I did a lot of the basics, but I think there’s probably a little bit of a difference. I also get a little frustrated when I hear people say that we’re in a sales business, right? Because we’re not in the sales business. We’re in a service business. Yep. It’s very, the sales is very little, you know, the negotiations are important. There’s no question. I mean, that’s why people hire us is that negotiation is probably one of the most critical factors. But if we think about the entire transaction, almost all of it is servicing our clients and helping them through the process, sometimes emotionally, and sometimes just, you know, just transactionally. But if I look at it, from a perspective that this is that this is a relationship business, not a sales business, and that it’s relations, not transactions. And I really focused on trying to measure my success based on the relationships I was forming, not the transactions in the first year. Now, I was pretty fortunate. At that properties. We have a program where they call it road to Rolex. And if you sell a certain amount, I think it’s 12 million or so you can win this Rolex and I was lucky enough to get it that first year. Wow. But I think I think part of having that much sales in the first year had everything to do with just some really basic things. One was I did three open houses every weekend and I still do open houses, and I have one team member Julie Schultz. She does them regularly as well. Now, she just started. She just celebrated one year yesterday, actually. So it’s not new for me on the team side. But I didn’t want on Saturday and two on Sundays. And that’s just, you know, a big part of it.

D.J. Paris 10:15
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you. But I do want to know, how you obtain these open houses, right? I’m assuming these were listings you did not have mostly? Did you just go up to other brokers in the office and say, I would love to do an open house for you? How did you build those relationships?

Thomas Downing 10:32
I’m so glad you asked that question. Because that now on the other side, now that I’m more, you know, I’m a listing agent, primarily, right, I would say that it’s really interesting to watch the other side of it. Because when I was just getting started, which wasn’t that long ago, I still feel like a newcomer, I would make myself as available and as, let’s say, useful to that agent as I possibly could. So I know some agents will, you know, I’ll ask for help on open houses. And they’ll really want to know how long the open house has been, you know, how sure, valuable is the houses, they get kind of picky, which is fine. But I’m looking for somebody who’s, you know, doesn’t mind doing the dogs occasion? Sure, and, and will help me out. And so what I did was I gave really good feedback on exactly what was happening, my own feedback, and I put it in emails and texts, so that they could just for that under their clients, I made it super easy for them. So because I treat them as customers, I mean, other agents are our clients as well. And a lot of ways we don’t think of it that way. But it’s a key part of the business. So I would ask for the open houses. I would take anything they give me. Sure. And then as I became more useful to them, I started, you know, they’d put me on more useful open houses, and they relied on me. Hi, so

D.J. Paris 11:46
I was I just wanted to ask real quickly. Now, you’re on the other side. And I know you have you have some some members now that you go to how often do newcomers come to you on their own saying I would love to do an open house for you? Is that a common occurrence? Or is it not that common?

Thomas Downing 12:01
It kind of goes in waves, I would say that when we have at that property. We had kind of a we’ve had a big growth spurt in the in the North Shore, we were opening two more offices. So there’s there are more newcomers coming. And they’re pretty good about asking, honestly, oh, that’s the training tells them to do that. So it is it’s it’s sometimes hard for me if I’ve got you know, 15 or 16 listings at one time I forget who did I’m sure. So I’m not the best at going back and making sure that I’m following up with the right people. So another piece of advice would be to you, it’s okay to hound that agent. I don’t mind. You know, if you ask every weekend that that’s great, because that will give it to whoever’s asking,

D.J. Paris 12:41
and when you were asking, you know, when you were first, how often would you would the broker say, I don’t really need any help on this one? Like, what was the hit rate?

Thomas Downing 12:51
No, that’s a good question. I it just depends on you know, in the spring market, when everything’s going crazy, because we are a lot more cyclical in the in the north shore than they are the city. Okay, so we we have a strong spring market, we have a fall market, and then things definitely slow down between those markets. Or those times, but I would say that it was probably one out of five, you know, I mean, you have to keep asking, you can’t give up on one. The other thing I would do is send it out to everybody, you know, in the office emails just saying, Look, I’m available this week, if you need help. And so if I wasn’t getting what I needed, I just keep asking until you do, but I was always busy.

D.J. Paris 13:29
And then were you doing anything you think unusual or and I don’t mean unusual, strange, but just maybe unique. When these open houses either to promote them, or when when buyers walk through that you think helped your success.

Thomas Downing 13:45
You know, there, we actually took a class at open houses, and wow, that’s great. And I’m really big on the education as well. I constantly try to learn and and see what I can learn from there. But I would say that one of the things I learned was just to be yourself, you know, people are going to work with people they want to work with, and there’s not much you can do about that. I tend to be pretty relaxed and kind of jokey. And that’s not gonna work for everyone. And I know that. So, um, you know, I think the best advice I heard was to absolutely be yourself, be confident, don’t over try. And so one of the things I learned is, you know, as soon as someone walks in the door, you don’t jump on, right, let them come in, let let them get settled, put on their booties, take off their shoes, and then I stick up my hand and say, you know, Tom, you know, get their names. I tell them three things about the house that I’ve come up with, you know that, you know, either people have asked me about or might be of interest, and I tell them I’m gonna be out. I’m gonna get out of your hair. I’ll be in the kitchen. And if you have any questions come see me. So that way they feel comfortable because let’s face it, when you walk into the open house, you know you’re about to get a cost, right? The more that I can just make them feel comfortable and actually coming to me the better. I also took a pretty early stance that I would not You know, I do collect names and numbers and things, but I don’t contact them unless I have some kind of connection with them. Because, you know, I’m just I know a lot of people don’t agree with that, you know, they say you get all the names and contact them three times and all that. I just don’t I unless there’s a strong connection, I don’t bother them. So how would

D.J. Paris 15:19
you determine if there’s a strong connection? What would that look like?

Thomas Downing 15:23
Yeah, that’s, so if they did come and start talking about the house and some questions, and then if there was some, if there’s some point where people are saying, you know, what, I’m really looking for a four bedroom. Well, now that just opened the door for them to start talking about the four bedrooms in the neighborhood. And you know, I’ve done my homework, I know what’s available around the, around the neighborhood, I might even have listing sheets for all those houses, and they’re available, Open House dates, so that I can actually be useful right there and say, Well, look, I’ve got this, you know, available to me, I have to talk a lot about the private listing network, because that’s one thing, they don’t have access. So if they do want to hear about it, I’m happy to talk about it. So you know, all those things you can do to bring them in, but you kind of know, there’s a point where they’re their guard is down, and now you’re actually talking in the kitchen for a while. And I’d rather spend time with that, than trying to get a numbers game and talk to every single person. And no passive, it’s busy.

D.J. Paris 16:14
Gotcha. And so you have you collect some numbers, not all, or rather, maybe you collect them all, but you’re contacting people you’ve had some sort of meaningful conversation with after the fact. And what what percentage, just I don’t know that you’ll necessarily know the number, but what would you guess would be the percentage of the deals you ended up doing that first year? Were from those open house? You know,

Thomas Downing 16:37
I would say 90% of definitely from open houses, because there’s, I didn’t really have any other resource, right? There’s one, there is one other that I’ll talk about in a second. But for me, that was really the the, the bread and butter was my opportunity to meet people and talk about statistics. I mean, you know, 60 to 70% of them are unrepresented. That’s, you know, we can send out letters, we can do cold calling, you know, all those types of things. But where else? Are you going to find people who are actively looking that are possibly not represented? I mean, if we’re not putting all our attention to this, it’s the lowest hanging fruit. So it doesn’t make any sense. Not to.

D.J. Paris 17:13
Yeah, it’s really, really interesting that there are still brokers today who are not big fans of of open houses to get buyer leads. And I talked to broker after broker, almost, you know, always 1% top one percenters who just say that is simply not the case. And clearly was not the case for you, are you able to have tremendous success with that? Is it still a huge source? Obviously, I know, you work a lot by referral, being in your third year, that’s probably started to become more and more prominent, but do you still get a lot of leads that way for, you know, other future purchasers?

Thomas Downing 17:48
We do, you know, my, my focus, you know, more of a, I’ve really been focusing on listings. Now, that’s my third year, and that was kind of her plan was to become more of a listing agent. So Julie, does a lot of the open houses, that’s how we get buyers absolutely for, for the group. For the most part, now, my focus really is selling the house, because it’s my listing, I’ve kind of moved to that side of it. So the focus is on really identifying those people that are going to be a good fit for this house. If I do meet people who are looking still, then I’m able to just pass them along to Julie with a warm transfer, we have a meeting in the office to go over, you know what the process is like to buy a house and the two of us meet together with the new the new buyer. And then she she kind of takes from there, but and she’s done a great job of even bringing in her own. But but for me now, my focus is really how do I best serve as my, my listings, you know, and so how do I make sure that I, you know, do my best because it is more of a buyers market right now, this time of year, I think everywhere now, but it has been for the last year in the North Shore. So anything we can do to help to move our house to the top of the list. You know,

D.J. Paris 18:54
what we’re doing everything we can Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that there was one other suggestion that you had or something that worked for you, maybe especially to open houses.

Thomas Downing 19:03
So if you work for a larger firm, often they have opportunities for relocations. And I’ve also heard so many agents talk about how, you know, horrible relocation is because they take so much of your, you know, commission and you know, and frankly, it does, you know, depending on your, your split with your company, it might be somewhere between 60 and 75% of your commission by the time Yeah, everybody’s had their handout. But to me, I look at that. So so let’s say it’s at the worst case scenario, you get 25% of the commission. Well, if you have a marketing budget, and you’re looking at it that way, which would have could have been 10 to 15 to 25% of your, you know, earnings. Well, right there as a marketing budget. So for me to have, especially as a new agent, I’m trying to prove that I’ve got some kind of sales under my belt, you know, that’s one of the worst things when you first start is that you know, the last few how many sales have you had, you can’t really answer right or easily. So well, you can’t answer easily because you could say right and so, to me, I look at it as another there’s a huge opportunity to learn our craft, and to be handed a listing by the time you’re done, you now have, you know, if you’ve done two or three that entire year, those are two or three listings that absolutely just gave you experience and gave you credibility in that market. So, to me, I still do them when, when possible, and I just really believe in the amount on the listing side, you know, you can do that either way. On the listing side, why wouldn’t I do it? You know, it’s my sign on, right, which is the best advertising you could possibly. And so, you know, it’s just to me those two things go hand in hand.

D.J. Paris 20:33
Yeah. And I was curious to in the North Shore, and I don’t know, I suspect this maybe gets taken more advantage of in a good way, and maybe in the suburbs than here in the city. But how often? Are you doing any efforts? And the answer may be no, but I’m just curious. So if you have a site, you have a listing in the neighborhood, how often do you end up getting other listings in that neighborhood? Is do the neighbors take notice? Are you reaching out to them? Or?

Thomas Downing 21:00
Absolutely, yeah, no, absolutely. That’s that’s a big part of it, too. And you know, that further is even the point about the relocation because if it’s a listing side, then you’re and you’re getting buyer’s offer as well. So it always pans out in the long run. But no, absolutely. I’ve gotten listings, next door neighbors of people around the corner, who’s who come into your open house where they see your sign. At one point, it was kind of embarrassing. I wasn’t used, you know, I still really do consider myself a newcomer. And I have had it happen a couple of times where I’ve been to people in a party, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I see him everywhere. And it just, it just cracks me up. Because actually, the ones that that came from, are likely to relocations that just happened to be on very, very busy streets that most people wouldn’t want to sell, wouldn’t want to sell. But they saw my son. It’s funny. So

D.J. Paris 21:49
I you know, you know, we should mention to the listeners who are who are realtors who are looking to maybe get involved in relocation transactions that you can reach out to relocation companies and say, I would like to be available. If you work for a firm that doesn’t necessarily have those connections, like Coldwell Banker for examples is directly connected to the biggest relocation company, but, but other brokers can, too, right? Obviously, at properties, you know, has probably those connections, as well as other firms, but you can directly reach out yourself to and just keep hopefully politely pestering them until they give you an opportunity. But yes, you know, obviously, they’re going to take a percentage of that, but it is it is a potentially a free listing or a free buyer. And, you know, good a good way to cut your teeth for

Thomas Downing 22:33
sure. Absolutely, especially in the start when you’re starting.

D.J. Paris 22:38
And we should talk about you know, your growth has been the fact that you did was it 12 million in your first year.

Thomas Downing 22:44
Yeah, so my first count, how

D.J. Paris 22:46
I always love this question, because the person who founded our firm, was the was the car Rookie of the Year, way back in like 2003. And I said, Oh, when did you close your first sale? So he was like, the, I don’t know, if he was the thing. He was the top producer for the Chicago area. And he goes, seven took me seven months, you know, and then he ended up closing seven deals at a seven month and then other brokers who, who, you know, are these top rookie producers tend to do it more quickly. But how quickly did it happen for you?

Thomas Downing 23:17
Um, you know, I was, I was lucky in the sense, you know, there’s a couple of things to it, and it kind of goes hand in hand too. But I go to the office every day, even when I’m there as much as I can. And so there’s things that happen in the office just because you happen to be sitting there. But there was a situation where I was able to help an agent, the relationship was falling apart a little bit with these people. And there was a you know, it just made sense for me to actually help out just because they were about to lose the listing directly. So I was able to kind of take a split with her and take over and help just kind of smooth things out and get the deal done in the long run. So I was able to have a closing pretty early in my career, but you know, I don’t know I don’t know how much of it is luck and how much is it? But, you know, if I hadn’t been there wouldn’t have happened. So yeah, it’s they started pretty early though, for me, I I started working open houses immediately and helping out other agents. And so I did pick up buyers pretty quick. Gotcha.

D.J. Paris 24:22
Gotcha. And now would you ever did you ever think or would you ever think to move your specialty closer down to Anderson Ville area? Or do you really love the north, you know, working with North Shore?

Thomas Downing 24:36
I have just had a closing on foster and I’ve done some down in the in the literature but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s more it has been more people that are selling their home in the city and moving up to the North Shore, so I’ll support them on that side. But it’s kind of my passion. I actually like to be able to park

D.J. Paris 24:56
Yeah, sure. Sure. Well, I just I love it. Seville my parents are from the North Shore. They’re from Northbrook in Glenview. So we know that area quite well. But um, I used to live nearby Andersonville. And I just I’ve always tried to get up to Andersonville as much as I can. But I, I love the fact that you that you live there and do the commute out. So any other pieces of advice, you’ve given a lot of good, a lot of good strategies, but anything else for brokers looking to increase production that maybe you feel that they’re not doing that you see sort of, you know, in general, and I know you have blinders on? I’m sure for your own business. But do you see other brokers maybe not taking advantage of certain things? They could be?

Thomas Downing 25:37
Yeah, absolutely. You know, for me, I tried, you know, in the beginning, I didn’t start with a large budget either. So, for me, the way I came into this was that, you know, I was going to eat what I kill sort of thing. So as I, as I had had transactions, I just sort of tighten my belt, and put in I know, people talked about 10 to 20% of your of your sort of income going back to marketing. And I was doing close to 50, because I just knew that, in order to build the business, at this late in the game in my life, at 50, I was I just realized I was going to just have to really hit it hard the first few years. And then hopefully this pans out so that I can start doing the referral side of it and relax a little bit. So I, I think setting a stretch goal for yourself was really critical. For me, I see a lot of agents, just kind of really, as I said, just go from transaction to transaction. But unless you have a year plan, and then break that down to what it’s gonna look like each month for how many relationships you need to actually start talking to. That’s critical. And I’m, you know, what gets measured gets done. And I just can’t imagine not making it work without having some kind of yardstick for how I’m going along the way. And then the other part was investing in key learning like I did not, I tried different things. So you know, I’m an X marketing guy. So you try different things. You give it a year, and if they don’t work, stop it and move on to something else. So I was doing a lot of Every Door Direct Mail shirt that is that you could use to the post office and I did pretty heavily. It didn’t really work for me. I know a lot of agents, it works really well for big agents. It didn’t for me. So I stopped that. I tried Zillow leads in the beginning, that also was not a good

D.J. Paris 27:18
that’s not especially if your personality to call somebody 15 times before them.

Thomas Downing 27:26
Yeah, probably not, you know. And so it wasn’t that particular product wasn’t a good fit for me. I know other people I get like I don’t really well. But I will say one thing that helped me a lot was I don’t know if you’re familiar with Ninja training,

D.J. Paris 27:40
Colorado, everyone raves about it. That’s all I know. Yeah.

Thomas Downing 27:44
It’s, it’s amazing. And so it was offered at our at our office, and I signed up for it. It was a little expensive for me at the time. But it’s something I put into practice. And it really did change the entire way i i did my business I was doing well, to start with for sure. But when I did that, and it was very early on in that first year. There it exponentially changed everything like it, it changed my whole way of approaching relationships, again, things that are not just about the transaction, but just how do you really kind of fit your lifestyle into this workplace so that there’s a match between the two of them, and they become much more holistic and easy, frankly. So it’s been a really, I can’t talk enough about that. I did also get my CSR GRI I’m not really big on a lot of letters behind the names because I’ve just looked at an ARS surveys and customers really

don’t care about that. But or they just don’t understand them. Yeah, it’s not high on their list of why they choose an

agent. But both of those, those two in particular gave me some really good tools I thought to that have been very useful.

D.J. Paris 28:53
Yeah, if for the brokers out there listening, who are obviously interested in learning from people like Thomas and who mentioned, you know, the ninja selling program, which is very well respected. And there’s others too, right. So you there’s Brian Buffini, he’s got a great system, Mike ferry, his son, Tom Ferry, there’s there’s other systems out there that are all different, you know, for different personalities, but I always say like, choose one of them. And, you know, these are pretty well respected systems, and they work. You know, maybe they don’t all work for every broker, but they will work if you find the one that matches your personality and investing in a system, I think is is it there’s just inherent accountability when you’re spending hundreds or 1000s of dollars on a system, you’re gonna probably put that into practice. Maybe more so than if it’s just you on your own. So I’m a huge, huge fan of of doing, suggesting that too. Well, we should. I think you have given us so much good information. I think this is a good point to to wrap up and Thomas has given a tremendous amount of his time too. So we appreciate that. If any If buyers or sellers or investors are interested in working with you directly, what is the best way that they should reach out to you?

Thomas Downing 30:08
Thank you. Yeah, the best way to probably reach me would just be by phone at 847-778-9952. Or they can go to my website with my contact information at Thomas downing.com, as you mentioned earlier in the show,

D.J. Paris 30:24
yeah. And Thomas is obviously extraordinarily nice person, he’s very easy to get a hold of. And, you know, we appreciate his his time as well on the show. Oh, I want to just ask one final thing. I’m sorry, I just realized, I wanted to hear what was the was if you could distill one piece of advice from all the years of sort of the branding side of it, and I know you did more than branding, when you were a consultant, but sort of the whole holistic approach to customer service or the customer experience? Is there one key learning that that you would like to share that has helped you in your real estate business?

Thomas Downing 30:59
Wow, that is a great question. And I, you know,

D.J. Paris 31:01
I’m putting I’m putting you a little on the spot. So I apologize for

Thomas Downing 31:03
that at all, it actually is an easy answer. As a business management consultant, one of the things I was doing with regards to customer experience was doing a lot early on with healthcare, large hospitals and healthcare systems in Seattle, in Texas and other places, where they were trying to build their brand now around changing a patient experience into a customer experience, which is really hard to do in that industry, because of just the personnel doctors and nurses feel like they are caregivers. What was said to me, and it’s, and I swear I think about it every week, this nurse was talking about how important it is when we have these really huge life, life issues that take place. So when someone is in a hospital, that typically is a very big life event for them, they’re not there. Sure, you know, whether it’s having a baby, which is a great, you know, joyful experience, or something worse. And when our minds are different when we’re in an experience like that, and I really do like buying a house to this as much as we take it for granted. We’re around it all the time, just like nurses around patients. These are huge events in people’s lives, no matter who they are, it’s usually the biggest purchase we’ve ever made in our life. And if we’re truly focused on them as people and as an experience, then we have to realize that that everything we say and do is hitting the the gray matter in a different way than just talking on the street, the way we are reacting to what’s going on around them the way we convey the information, what the other side is saying during the negotiations, how we’re supporting them with our vendors, and you know, other parts just to make this whole thing come together. You know, we sometimes forget just how much stress they’re under, and how much they’re remembering every little facial tic that we’re going through as we do this process. So whether we have a good experience or bad experience with them is it’s it’s critical based on the amount of service we’re providing at that point, and listening and kind of really remembering the fact that we’re here helping them on a on a major life event. And as long as we take it seriously like that. And remember that each time I think that’s how we get repeat and referral business as well as you know, customers for life because it is so critical, and it’s easy to forget it.

D.J. Paris 33:15
Well, I want to thank Thomas downing for being on the show. He’s very generous with his time and hopefully everyone who listened, starts doing more open houses and starts treating the client maybe more holistically in particular, with respect to understanding how important these these transactions are to them. So Thomas, thank you for being on the show, and we appreciate your time.

Thomas Downing 33:39
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

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In the past 12 months Weston Harding and his brokerage X Plus Real Estate has doubled their production from 20m to 40m. Aside from being a top 1% producer, Weston is also the largest seller of 2-4 flat properties in Chicago. During our conversation Weston talks about how he transitioned from West Texas to Chicago, why he focuses on investments and investors, and how he gives years of free value to prospects before he ever earns a commission!

Weston Harding can be reached at Weston.Harding@XPlusRealEstate.com and 312-669-4343.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:15
Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real. The only podcasts made by Chicago real estate brokers for Chicago real estate brokers. My name is DJ Parris, I am your host through the show. And as always want to first thank all the people who are listening. So we appreciate you sharing this podcast with other realtors in your area. And also recommending realtors that we should be interviewing on the show, we have a huge backlog, I think we’re over 100 people now have written in with suggestions. So if we haven’t replied to you or gotten to your recommendation yet, we will might just take us a little bit of time. So thanks, keep sending them in. Also, if you are not currently following us on Facebook, we’d encourage you to do that. You can just find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pot. You can also download and listen and stream every episode we’ve ever done right directly from our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. And of course, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play Anywhere else podcasts are served, just search for keeping it real podcast. And you should find us want to have a quick suggestion before we get on to our interview with great western Harding, which is that I was thinking about this the other day. I’m not sure that I’ve talked about it on the show before. So the the real impetus for putting this show together where we interview the top 1% of brokers in the Chicagoland area was because I went to a YPN event which stands for Young Professionals Network, which is put on in this case by our local association here in the city, which is called car Chicago Association of Realtors. Now there, those of you who are listening might not be in the city of Chicago, you might be in the suburbs, you might be somewhere else in the country or even other parts of the world. We do have listeners kind of all over. So odds are you belong to a local association, where you are and odds are that association has one of these groups and what what this YPN event showcased. And the reason why this podcast really exists is because I went to a meeting once and they had a panel of top producers and the producers were saying here’s how I grew my business. And I thought oh, that’s a cool idea, someone should make that into a podcast. So I really owe this podcast idea, a great deal of gratitude to the Young Professionals Network at the Chicago Association of Realtors. But again, if you’re a member of a different Association, you should reach out to them and find out what their version of that is. Many of them have actually YPN groups or something similar. And again, it’s just a great way to network. But more importantly, I think get information and advice from people who are already doing it. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and can learn from the masters. Again, that’s all of course what we’re trying to do on the show as well. And we’re almost at our 70th episode, and we’re so grateful that everyone continues to listen and continues to send in recommendations. So bottom line, contact your local board and say, hey, I want to learn from the best what programs do you have for me to get in front of top producers. And odds are they have something like yp and YPN does a lot of other things too. But anyway, I’m a huge fan of theirs. So just do that kind of stuff, and you’ll get better as a broker. And maybe you’ll be on the show one day so thanks so much for listening onto our interview with Weston.

Today on the show, we have Weston Harding of x plus real estate, Weston Harding founded x plus real estate in January of 2011. And he specializes in the brokerage of investment and residential properties in Chicago. As a dedicated real estate professional, Weston’s excellent customer service is reflected in a consistently strong sales record. Previously, he served as Director of real estate sales for RV savvy, where he established the sales division for apartment savvy Chicago West and started his Chicago career at Essex Realty Group where he acquired exceptional knowledge of the Chicago investment market and Chicago neighborhood opportunities originally from Houston West and graduated from Texas Tech he received his real estate license as an undergrad and was employed by REMAX of Lubbock while earning his Bachelor’s in agricultural economics. Weston is well respected in the Chicagoland real estate business and sits on the board of directors at the Harold Eisenberg Foundation. He founded the annual Harold Eisenberg Midwest real estate challenge which includes participation from the Chicago community in collaboration with students from major universities. X plus, Weston’s company is on track to close 40 million by the end of this year, which by the way, is up from 20 million last year and obviously incredible there. And they are also the number one seller of two to four unit properties in all of Chicago. You can visit Weston and x plus real estate at x plus realestate.com. Welcome come to the show Weston, thanks for being on our podcast. Thanks, DJ,

Weston Harding 5:02
thanks so much for having me. I can’t wait to tell you everything I’ve learned in real estate and pass on that knowledge. So

D.J. Paris 5:09
perfect. And then I’ll never have to do another episode because you’ll just give all the information that anyone would ever need. So this is a I’m really honored, I no longer have to. Perfect. Yeah, and let’s, let’s let’s dive right into it. Because originally, you’re from Texas, Houston, and then over to the Lubbock area. But tell us how you got started in real estate.

Weston Harding 5:31
Yeah, so I actually went to school at Texas Tech University, and I thought I was going to be a mechanical engineer. And I really liked working on cars growing up, and I thought that would be a great career for me. But as time went on in school, I actually started working for the owner of REMAX of Lubbock, a guy by the name of Tony Lloyd, and worked in their photo department taking photos of properties and loading them up and started to realize I really liked real estate and started to sell houses, to my fraternity brothers who could actually, their parents would buy a house, I mean, houses in Lubbock, or at the time are ranging between like 50 to $100,000, a couple blocks off campus. So my parents bought a house and my sister and I lived in it and then sold it and made money. But more importantly, I would sell to fraternity brothers parents who would pretty much have a three bedroom house, their son would live in one of those bedrooms, and then the other two bedrooms, they would rent out and pretty much cover their mortgage. And then we would just sell it, you know, three years later when that student was ready to move. So that’s where I got my start and then moved here and worked for at a great company Essex Realty Group that specialized in 20 Plus unit apartment buildings. And while working there, I realized that there’s a lot of smaller buildings, specifically two to four units up to about six units that just didn’t have anybody helping those sellers sell the properties or buyers buy the properties. And I was like, you know that that guy can be me. So

D.J. Paris 7:08
ya know that that makes perfect sense. If you don’t want me asking why, how, why the move from from Texas, West Texas to Chicago. Yeah,

Weston Harding 7:15
great, great question. So I actually went for a couple of job interviews in Dallas. For larger commercial real estate companies I wanted to get in, I liked the investment side of real estate. So I wanted to get into that. And at one of those meetings, my dad actually joined from Houston and knew the owner of the company. And afterwards, my dad and I went to get a drink at a local bar. And I kind of was like, you know, this sounds like a great job, I should take it. And he pretty much told me that, you know, they’ve lived all over the world and in New York and all over America as well, before they decided to put roots into Houston. And my dad’s like, you should definitely check out other places across the US or the world before you just take a job here. So that kind of stuck with me a little bit. And I was like, No, it would be kind of cool to be the guy who leaves Texas and does his own thing and makes his own mark. So looked around. And you know, Chicago seemed like the right city for me. So

D.J. Paris 8:15
well, yeah, that’s, that’s really interesting. I know, when I graduated college, I ended up in St. Louis, and I’m not from St. Louis. But I ended up there because that’s where this job that, you know, employed me, put me and I had not done the like, should I live in and there’s nothing wrong with St. Louis. It’s fine. But I wouldn’t have chosen St. Louis. But it was like similar to your situation in Dallas, like, you might have just gone to Dallas and nothing wrong with Dallas either. But like this idea that you can live other places is, is very cool. So anyway, that I guess that brought you here and then tell us a little bit about, you know, x plus. And by the way, we should also mention that for all the listeners. Weston is actually looking for someone to fill a position. So tell us a little bit about the company and ultimately what you’re looking

Weston Harding 9:05
Yeah, sure. So um, so I started x plus, like you said, the beginning of 2011 with the whole mindset that we would specialize in two to four unit properties. And I wanted to always be the number one seller of that and be the best broker I possibly can be in that field. So with that, I started working really hard by myself crazy hours and started to put together a database. So we actually put together a database of every two to 12 unit owner on the northwest side and specialize in neighborhoods where I actually at the time was personally buying property. So mostly 60618 Avondale Irving Park Roscoe village. Sure. And so we specialized in that area. And as the company grew more So myself and then I hired an assistant, and then two years ago, I actually sat down with a throughout another amazing agent here, Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg, to kind of just catch up on the Marquette, and they really helped me kind of put together a team and gave me the insight on you know how they did it, and how they would recommend me doing it. So I decided two years ago to actually build a team, I just couldn’t be working the crazy amount of hours I was. Sure. So I started there two years ago. And since then it has allowed me to just totally expand the company massively. And it’s done amazing things marketing wise. And as well as just owning that market of two to four units. So about two years ago, I took on a buying agent, and my assistant moved over to like more of an assistant closer coordinator role. And then last year, I went ahead and double that. So I brought on like a full sales side person, a full side, buying broker for full time rental agent, and then my closing coordinator still there. And then the beginning of this year has been even bigger. So we actually expanded now I have two full time buying agents, full time selling agent, a rental specialist, and then my closing coordinator slash assistant. And that’s really allowed me to just focus on what I do best, which is market the company doing podcasts like this, as well as put together and meet more people that are that are looking to invest in smaller investment properties, or, more importantly, people that currently own that are looking help selling their property. So I’m actually looking for somebody to kind of take a sales role. That would be on our sales side, that would be somebody who would be looking to meet with the owners help kind of manage the team as a whole. This is a real great role. The perfect person I kind of see for this is somebody that’s already been in real estate for four to five years, understand the processes of real estate, and hopefully has done some sort of investment properties. But more importantly, it’s somebody who doesn’t really want to work as many weekends. So this role allows somebody who might have experience and might have a kid on the way, or is looking to not work weekends as much kind of stepped into a role where they’re managing a top 1% team. And the number one team in Chicago for two to four units. So

D.J. Paris 12:10
awesome. Well, if anyone out there feels like they’d be a good fit, what’s the best way they can reach out and submit their

Weston Harding 12:16
Yeah, so they can actually email me directly at Westin, w e s, t o n, dot Harding, H AR D ing at x plus realestate.com. And feel free, they can go online and check out our website, all my contact informations there, that’s x plus realestate.com. Or they can call in text our office line at 312-669-4343.

D.J. Paris 12:41
Awesome. Well, thank you for that I wanted to go back to the one of the original things that you did when you when you when you founded x plus, which, which was you sort of identified your geographic area. And then you said now we’re going to make a database of all the odors from these two to 12, sort of flat units, or, or two to two to 12 unit buildings. And wow, if you don’t mind sharing some of some of those tips, because oftentimes, it’s funny, you work a lot with investors, you yourself are an investor as well. And I’ve always heard that it’s never hard finding investors, it’s always the hardest part is finding the deal that the investors show up when the deal is there. And of course, finding those opportunities tend to be the hardest part. What were some of the ways that you started to create that database

Weston Harding 13:27
share, so I’m so kind of back track here. So it was kind of interesting. When I was working in Lubbock, I was doing mostly residential 100% residential. And then when I moved to Chicago, I worked in commercial real estate and commercial real estate is totally different. Sure, as far as they don’t normally have an MLS, there’s loop net costar, but most agents have their own database, right. And we’re constantly working with that where on a residential side you have more of an MLS and this like cooperation and people are all working together. And in commercial, there’s not so much so I kind of combined both of those worlds because a two to four unit property is kind of a little bit of both, it’s technically four units. And below is residential. And the commercial side is the investment side. So we’ve kind of combined those and part of that was creating a database so you you can get there’s plenty of websites like list source and even title companies can help you pull owners information and mailing addresses.

D.J. Paris 14:26
Just to interject for a quick second also costar can do that too. You just you have to pay for some of that information. But that’s another resource,

Weston Harding 14:34
right? So you’ll have to pay for the information and then the biggest part is is how to get those people’s attention. So we’ve done mailers cold calling, dropping by and knocking on doors, flyers, you name it, we’ve done all of that. So I think the biggest thing is creating the database and then working with that database and I think mailers is probably the best way to go about it. But really once you can get somebody to Get in contact with and really tell them what you’re doing. That’s really the best way to sell them. So

D.J. Paris 15:06
that you guys do the math, do you do management as well, or just

Weston Harding 15:10
so we do not touch management. We work with a couple of great management companies that we really liked working with. And we, we refer them clients, they refer us clients. But we don’t do that. I think it’s kind of a conflict of interest. Plus, we like to just solely focus on helping people, one, create more wealth in their properties by giving them rental comps sales comps in the area, showing them what improvements they can make to their properties to get a better value and creating that relationship where property management is just a whole nother beast.

D.J. Paris 15:45
So So you guys will reach out to these owners and say, Hey, if you’re ever looking to sell, you know, we can certainly assist you or if you need help getting, you know, some of the space rented residential or commercial you can assist in developing the relationships that way. Is that is that my understanding?

Weston Harding 16:00
Yeah, so we’re in a long term game. So most of our clients we will meet with and talk to once every three months for two to three years, sometimes longer, till they’re ready to make that sale, and is really just keeping that relationship. So whatever they need is what we like to supply. So whether that’s Hey, we’re thinking about reappraising our property, who do you recommend we go with, and we’ll give them a lender, or we’ll give them comps for that. Or we’re looking to maybe make some improvements, we have a tenant moving out, can you come by and tell us what you think improvements we should be made, and you have a contractor for us. So we’ll supply all of that to owners at no cost. And one, helping them build a relationship with us, but also helping them improve it, what their property is going to be worth when they sell because if they make the right improvements and increase their rent, their properties can easily go from, you know, 500 $600,000 to 789 $100,000 properties within a year or two time period.

D.J. Paris 17:00
I’m so glad that you, you mentioned that this is a huge point of distinction. You know, there are tons of brokers who have these ideas of I’m going to call on or see if they’re ready to sell and you know, just sort of pile on the phones or pound mailers. And if they’re not ready, then I’ll just move on. And the fact that you start the relationship before someone’s actually ready to do a transaction is obviously this huge value add, which of course separates you from all the other brokers out there. So do you have you found that that’s true that that’s pretty, pretty unique proposition?

Weston Harding 17:31
Yeah, we get a lot of people one specializing in the niche that we’re in, which is the two to four units, we there’s not a whole lot of I guess other brokers doing this. But supplying this type of stuff is great. I mean, we get we get a lot of a lot of times we’ll make cold calls, and talk to people or people call us and be like, No, I don’t want you to do any of that. But then after we’ll just send them over some stuff as like a show of good faith. They’re, they’re really impressed. A lot of times they don’t believe we’re actually going to do any of it for free. Like they keep asking us what’s what’s the cost, and it’s like, it’s it’s free, like we really just want to help you. So that when you are ready to sell you, you’re the first person you think of

D.J. Paris 18:10
so yeah, that’s, that’s really, really smart. Because of course, when they sell, they are going to use a realtor almost certainly. And you know, might as well be the person who has been helping them for several years without obviously, any sort of direct compensation. So there’s that law of reciprocity that kicks in and, and obviously, you guys being so, you know, so consistently at the top of this, two to four flat sales obviously helps lead some credibility. But obviously, you were we were just talking about this offline that you were like, it is a ton of work for two to three years meeting with somebody every, you know, quarterly. But you know, for years before they’re really, you know, actually able to make the transition and use your services is huge.

Weston Harding 18:53
Yeah. And I think you had mentioned, you know, the growth from 20 million plus sales last year to, we’re on track to be 35 to 40 million this year. A lot of that is because of the relationships we’ve formed over the past couple of years. But that hard work and being able to have the team to really stretch out and perform all those services is, is really what’s helped us grow so fast.

D.J. Paris 19:18
Yeah, let’s talk about that. Because your team is very specifically structured. Obviously, there’s a million different ways to build a real estate team. And oftentimes, they’re just a bunch of agents kind of grouped together who all do similar tasks and kind of share things. Yours seems parceled out based on duties and responsibilities. Was that was that super deliberate instead of just hiring a bunch of brokers that could all come in and, and work kind of similarly?

Weston Harding 19:46
Yeah, um, so the reason why I did it that way is because because I was an agent all by myself and running like, ever wearing every hat for every transaction. It got to the point where I just noticed that certain have duties, for instance, for taking up more time than others. And if I, you know, I would go out with clients on by side and show them places and then write a contract for them, but then also have to worry about the follow up of making sure the inspection and all that and sometimes the amount of paperwork would just pile up. So I kind of read a couple books and looked at what I thought the way a team should be set up as well as the help from other realtors. And really, I thought, you know, especially what we’re doing on the buy side is that, you know, we supply a first time investor, a lot of our clients are actually what’s called House hacking or living in one of the units and having their other two to three units pay off their mortgage. So sure, that takes a lot of education to kind of help people with that, as well as putting together pro formas and information for them. So in my mind, if I could have my buying agent, only focus on one helping buyers be educated on that type of purchase, but also helping them find it so that when a property comes on the market, we’re the first person and they’re not worried about having to go to an inspection, or follow up on an appraisal or whatever the case may be. So that leaves our buying agents, all they have to do is worry about educating clients and showing properties. And putting them on negotiating deals, they don’t have to worry about finding their own clients, those are all supplied, and they don’t have to worry about making sure those clients get to the closing table. And the same thing on the sales side. Like I would like my sales agents to be able to call every agent they know that to looking for that type of property really heavily market that property and not have to worry about inspections or finding new clients or dealing with putting together CMAs all the other work, but really just hone their craft and become the best at it.

D.J. Paris 21:52
Yeah, and I think it’s worth repeating again, that that Weston and his team, they have their own database, I don’t know what percentage of deals you do even hit the MLS. But obviously having this non MLS database, we’ll call it of, of owners and units is so important and really worth doing. If you’re a broker looking to either work with investors or work with, you know, people who own these types of properties. So important and takes time, but absolutely worthwhile. And then like what Weston and his team does this actually build those relationships, providing this the sort of pro bono value for years and years before the person might be ready to actually sell or or an investor ready to buy?

Weston Harding 22:35
Yeah, exactly. I mean, the database is a huge part to it, I would say, you know, the mountain, we we do a lot of reaching out to the database. And we also do a lot of events. So we do a bi monthly event that will teach clients on the ins and outs of certain types of real estate. So we did one on Airbnb, which is kind of changing the whole market for investment properties. We did one on House hacking, how to buy your first investment property in everybody you need to know along the way, we’ve done stuff on property management and brought in property management companies. But to add value, but that also gives us a debt or buy side, we have somewhere close to actively 30 to 40 buyers at any given time that are ready to pull the trigger. And then we have somewhere close to about 100 to 200 investors who are looking to buy two to three properties a year, throughout the year. So you know a lot of times our deals if we’re on the sales side, we’ll get pitched to our clients first. Which is kind of a great bonus for us. We can keep it in house and be able to really control the transaction and make sure that there’s not any hiccups along the way. But yeah, I mean, having that database is a huge part of that. So

D.J. Paris 23:49
just out of curiosity, and this this the answer this could easily be No. But I was curious if you’ve developed any strategic partnerships with true commercial brokers as well, oftentimes, what a lot of times residential brokers or brokers who mostly do residential don’t realize about commercial is many commercial firms don’t even allow their brokers to do any residential. So I was curious if you develop any of those partnerships with, you know, people at some of the larger or smaller, even commercial firms where they’re like, oh, we have something for you. So I didn’t know if that ever comes? Yeah,

Weston Harding 24:20
so I don’t get a so I actually sent the Harold Eisenberg Foundation Board is a huge Board filled with a lot of commercial real estate agents, brokers, developers all across everything from retail to industrial. So a lot of those guys, especially if they’re not in the three to four unit market will send me stuff if they get it, as well as people that I’ve worked with in the past on commercial deals will send me deals and say, Hey, I’ve got this so we don’t have like a distinct written partnership with anybody but a lot of the times still stuff that will come across the desk. I’d say the people that reach out to us the most and we definitely do a lot of deals with wholesalers, so some of the bigger wholesalers in Chicago and depending on what your listeners know or don’t know, but a wholesaler somebody who’s puts a property under contract and then tries to resell it, either within 30 days or at the same time as when they’re closing, we get a lot of wholesalers that as soon as they put a two to four unit under market where their first phone call, they don’t reach, they don’t call their database of investors, they call us because they know that our buyers are going to be able to close that deal. Super fast and easy as is and don’t have any issues with you know, they’ve been most of our clients aren’t the pastor’s for 10 plus years. So they’ve seen it all. So we work a lot with wholesalers recently for deals that will be selling or just bringing in the buyer to take the deal over from them.

D.J. Paris 25:51
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, they know that you guys can get things closed quickly, you have this database of investors ready to ready to go who are just looking for deals. So that that makes perfect sense. I have a question, what advice would you have for maybe a traditional residential broker who doesn’t hasn’t worked with investors or not worked with a lot of investors, either on the buy or sell side? And it hasn’t worked in the two to four flat space? What advice would you have for them about starting to dip their toe in that water? Like what should they be reading? Where should they be learning, if you have any suggestions,

Weston Harding 26:26
share so. So a couple places one, our website has actually has a bunch of educational videos that we’ve put together on it. So you can check out our website, all for sharing information. But another big one is bigger pockets, of course, apps, they’re incredible source of information. And just the websites in general, if you type in investment videos, or two to four unit or house hacking videos, there’s 1000s upon 1000s of them on YouTube. So I really think bigger pockets is probably your best source for information on those types of properties. And just getting in there and just learning as much as you can. And then if anybody wanted to team up or was looking to sell a property and said, hey, you know, I don’t know how to do that we’re more than happy to cooperate with other agents or give out referral fees and work with other people as well. So

D.J. Paris 27:19
yeah, and by the way, I’d like to, to mention something that you just briefly discussed. And I met I wanted to interrupt at the time, but I didn’t interrupt you. But I wanted to. So I’ll interrupt now, because this goes back about 10 minutes. So I apologize for this being a bit disjointed. But this is really important you had mentioned and I think this is such a great metaphor for how to run a business. And ultimately, really what this podcast is about, and like this podcast, very, at its most basic level is talking to top 1% producers and saying how to do that. And that’s essentially all we do. Everyone does it a bit differently. But what I love that you’d mentioned, and I just want to highlight this for the listeners, is before starting your own company, or rather before building your own team, you went to Tommy Choi and Josh Weinberg, who are now at Keller Williams and said, Hey, guys, how do you do this? What should I do? What’s the best way to do this? And you know, obviously, those guys have an amazing reputation. They’ve been on the show as well. Super nice, of course. And but just I want to highlight like, what’s that is such a smart way to go to a really successful team and say, How did you build a team? And I suspect a lot of people maybe listening wouldn’t think to necessarily do that. So you should always be reaching out to people who have that specialty. So I just wanted to sort of highlight that. That was probably a really good idea.

Weston Harding 28:39
Yeah, I’m a very firm believer in not reinventing the wheel. I mean, if somebody else has already done this, and I listened to this podcast all the time, I mean, it’s amazing. You know, people always say the same thing over and over again, that it’s a lot of hard work. And, you know, talking to other brokers I think is a huge, a huge part of becoming a better broker yourself.

D.J. Paris 28:59
So yeah, and just to go back to bigger pockets, as well, like that probably is the best, you know, resource to really learn investment. I mean, there’s a million books and obviously a lot of great what seminars you can attend and videos, if you really want to get immersed in the community of investors and be able to talk sort of in real time to them online. And then they also have a million different meetups as well as bigger pockets is a really great, great resource as as Weston mentioned. And it’s I don’t know if it’s 100 bucks a year or whatever the cost is, it is absolutely worth and they have podcast too. And obviously they do all sorts of cool things. So that is a not like a resource worth re mentioning. Because I’m a huge fan of them as well. So tell us sort of where do you see x plus headed? Are you going to just stay on track, keep doing what you’re doing? Do you see you see it shifting or changing? In where I’m asking is do you see the investment market changing as well here in Chicago?

Weston Harding 29:54
Yeah, so that’s a great question. We get this all the time, especially lately with taxes going up and rentals. Looks like their pricing will probably be going down a little bit here over the next couple of years is, is the investment market going to stay as hot as it has been, and I firmly believe that in some areas, and most areas, it will, I mean, there’s a lot of places like Pilsen, Avondale, Albany Park, urban, Irving Park, Portage Park, that is all just making a huge change over the last couple of years of gentrification. And I think those markets are going to continue to grow, as well as markets like Lincoln Park, Lakeview Bucktown, Wicker Park that have been very solid rental markets with some amazing increases in rents over the last couple years, will stay hot as well. The thing is, is that there’s just so many two to four flats and two to 12 unit properties out there that those people that have a lot of longtime owners are getting to the point where they’re looking to cash out and maybe make a move somewhere warmer, or are looking to not have to manage these properties long term for the rest of their lives. So there’s going to continue to be people that are looking to sell those properties. And I think there is actually a huge increase of the number of people that are looking to buy properties, especially in the millennial generation, with the amount of information that’s online resources, like bigger pockets and other places about House hacking. And the idea that you can buy a property with three and a half percent down and grab the other two or three units pay your mortgage, a lot of young people really liked that idea. It allows them to live in the property or if they need a move, they now have an investment that they can leave in their portfolio as investments. And that gives a lot of younger people flexibility to go do whatever they want, whether that’s change jobs, or travel for a year, or whatever the case may be. So we’ve seen a huge increase lately of buyers in that market. And I think that’s going to continue to push the market in Chicago.

D.J. Paris 31:54
Have you seen any increased competition to to for the for listings? Has there been an increase in when you’re talking to these owners? Who may or may not be ready to sell in the moment do Do you find that there’s more brokers reaching out to them? Are you competing with more brokers in that respect? Or?

Weston Harding 32:15
So yeah, I would say that people are getting reached out to more. If you look at just like the data and the matrix, I think the next closest person to us in two to four unit sales is doing like half what we are. Gotcha. So it’s, it’s when we sit down to a listing appointment, you know, it’s I would say that, at least in my opinion, we’re the best brokerage for it. But we’re able to sit down and just give numbers that a lot of people aren’t able to give. I mean, last year, our average two to four unit sales, days on market was 13.8 days, and our average sale to list price or list the sale price was 98.9%. So being able to sit down and show just the value that people get by working with the x plus team, we rarely lose a listing.

D.J. Paris 33:03
How often is that is that all done in house where it’s the you guys have the buyers as well is that most of the time or some

Weston Harding 33:09
I would say probably about like 15% of the time, we’ll get it in house or a lot of that stuff is like wholesale deals where people bring us bring it to us, it’ll never hit the MLS. And we’ll just sell it directly to one of our buyers or we work with a couple of developers as well, that it’ll eventually hit the MLS, but it’ll hit the MLS once after sale. So a large number of those deals get done in house. But the stuff that hits the MLS and we tell most we actually tell most of our sellers, that we like it to hit the MLS because we’re not always going to have the highest Sharpe paying client and our goal on the sales side is to get you the most money as possible. And the most qualified buyer and not all the times our buyers aren’t going to be that. So we’d rather give another agent the opportunity to bring in that person to allow our client to get the highest price.

D.J. Paris 34:02
Makes perfect sense. Just to wrap up, do you so we have you know, a lot of listeners, almost all of which I believe are brokers. So is any blasting advice for brokers who, you know, would like to do more of what you guys do? Aside from of course going to work for you. Any steps aside from like joining bigger pockets, that you would sort of advise on brokers looking to increase production, maybe add some investors into their portfolio, or be being maybe be an investor themselves? Yeah,

Weston Harding 34:35
so I would say get on bigger pockets. I would say get online, really just dive in and educate yourself if you want to go that way. If you’re looking to actually increase your brokerage sales. The biggest thing I was ever able to do was hire my first assistant and I think I was capping out at somewhere around 12 to $15 million worth of deals. And I just couldn’t you just can’t go any higher. without hiring somebody else to help you, you can’t be in two places at once. So if you find yourself being like, how do I go to the next level, the fastest way to do that is to hire an assistant and then hire your next person. There’s that’s no other way that we’ve been able to grow. In fact, this fast is without one hiring more people. And more. So hiring quality people, like don’t just hire the first person you meet off the street, make sure you spend a couple of months really finding out who you want in that position and the most qualified person.

D.J. Paris 35:32
Awesome. Well, less than we should mention, again, at the beginning of the show, we went and talked about a position that he is looking to fill. So if that is something you are interested in exploring, you can reach out to Weston, can you give your your email and phone number once again?

Weston Harding 35:47
Yeah, for sure. So again, we’re looking to hire a sales position, kind of a sales manager position to kind of help run the team a little bit, as well as to manage the sales side. And my email is Western W E s, t o n, dot Harding, H AR d i n g at x plus realestate.com. And you can call or text at 312-669-4343.

D.J. Paris 36:15
And if anyone out there is who is not a broker, but is an investor or it really with any real estate needs, it’s not that Western team doesn’t just solely focus on investments, but that is obviously one of their specialties. So if you’re interested in working with Weston and his team, for anything real estate related, of course, you can contact him the same way you can visit their website as well at x plus realestate.com. And obviously Weston is super easy to to get in touch with he was we were very easy. Even getting him booked and scheduled and not everyone is that way. So we appreciate it. And anyway, so I wanted to thank Weston personally for being on the show. We really appreciate he is too busy to do the show and he still did it. So we thank him for that. And any we’re actually we already we went through everything so I think we’re good. So Weston, we appreciate your time.

Weston Harding 37:08
Thank you so much for having me. I really do appreciate it.

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